Talk:Rankings of universities in South Africa

Overall page order of rankings

I would like to propose that we change the order of rankings on this page? Currently the 2010 CHET report is first, which is non-ideal in two ways: first, it's older than most of what's below; and second, if you read the cited report, it is actually not a ranking scheme at all, but a categorical one (i.e., it seeks to identify similar institutions, but not based on quality per se). So (for example) UKZN is in the "green" cluster because it show evidence of doing multiple things, rather than doing "red" poorly.

I propose that the most informative order would be:

Highly Cited Rankings First (THE World Univ Rankings, QS World Univ Rankings, ARWU/Shanghai) Filling in Detail (URAP) Business Reputation (THE Alma Mater, Tredence) Ancillary/context (2010 CHET Report)

Thoughts? 68.59.53.36 (talk) 22:24, 30 March 2014 (UTC) Was accidentally not logged in, but initial comments on order come from Joebyday (talk) 22:26, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

...I was Bold, and went ahead and made this organizational change. Joebyday (talk) 01:33, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Error in Times Higher Education rankings for South Africa in 2013

The table provided on the Wikipedia page for the Times Higher Education Rankings of SA Universities for 2013 is in error. Please refer to the table published on http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking/region/africa:

The top African universities for 2012-13 are: University of Cape Town (ranked at 113 worldwide); University of Witwatersrand (226-250); Stellenbosch University (251-275); University of KwaZulu-Natal (351-400). UCTComment (talk) 14:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, that was some vandalism from yesterday which I have now reverted to the correct information. Thanks for pointing it out. - htonl (talk) 15:12, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Updated Rankings

Is it possible for some editors to help me update some of these rankings? Some of them are dated for 2013??? JamieBrown2011 (talk) 19:59, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Rankings are poor science

University Rankings are on so many Wikipedia University webpages, but they are based on poor science. The Higher education project is not a competition between institutions. Rankings do more harm than good, and I think that this should be mentioned. A few of the many readings

• https://scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2520-98682023000200006&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en

• https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-04-18/saudi-arabia-pays-spanish-scientists-to-pump-up-global-university-rankings.html

• https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20200612104427336

• https://lhsepic.com/11474/in-depth/11474/

• http://theconversation.com/university-rankings-are-unscientific-and-bad-for-education-experts-point-out-the-flaws-223033

• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03312-2

Derek J Moore (talk) 08:40, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

I trust that my efforts to repudiate rankings are not being seen as vandalism. I do think what is more important is to explore how rankings are being gamed in this country. I suspect there may be value in watching the affiliation (switch) patterns of Highly Cited Researchers (HCRs). See example of this Saudi Arabia https://www.sirisacademic.com/blog/the-affiliation-game-of-saudi-arabian-higher-education-research-institutions Derek J Moore (talk) 09:24, 29 June 2024 (UTC)