Ranking academic institutions based on the productivity,impact,and quality of institutional scholars

Purpose:The quantitative rankings of over 55,000 institutions and their institutional programs are based on the individual rankings of approximately 30 million scholars determined by their productivity,impact,and quality.Design/methodology/approach:The institutional ranking process developed here considers all institutions in all countries and regions,thereby including those that are established,as well as those that are emerging in scholarly prowess.Rankings of individual scholars worldwide are first generated using the recently introduced,fully indexed ScholarGPS database.The rankings of individual scholars are extended here to determine the lifetime and last-five-year Top 20 rankings of academic institutions over all Fields of scholarly endeavor,in 14 individual Fields,in 177 Disciplines,and in approximately 350,000 unique Specialties.Rankings associated with five specific Fields(Medicine,Engineering&Computer Science,Life Sciences,Physical Sciences&Mathematics,and Social Sciences),and in two Disciplines(Chemistry,and Electrical&Computer Engineering)are presented as examples,and changes in the rankings over time are discussed.Findings:For the Fields considered here,the Top 20 institutional rankings in Medicine have undergone the least change(lifetime versus last five years),while the rankings in Engineering&Computer Science have exhibited significant change.The evolution of institutional rankings over time is largely attributed to the recent emergence of Chinese academic institutions,although this emergence is shown to be highly Field-and Discipline-dependent.Practical implementations:Existing rankings of academic institutions have:(i)often been restricted to pre-selected institutions,clouding the potential discovery of scholarly activity in emerging institutions and countries;(ii)considered only broad areas of research,limiting the ability of university leadership to act on the assessments in a concrete manner,or in contrast;(iii)have considered only a narrow area of research for comparison,diminishing the broader applicability and impact of the assessment.In general,existing institutional rankings depend on which institutions are included in the ranking process,which areas of research are considered,the breadth(or granularity)of the research areas of interest,and the methodologies used to define and quantify research performance.In contrast,the methods presented here can provide important data over a broad range of granularity to allow responsible individuals to gauge the performance of any institution from the Overall(all Fields)level,to the level of the Specialty.The methods may also assist identification of the root causes of shifts in institution rankings,and how these shifts vary across hundreds of thousands of Fields,Disciplines,and Specialties of scholarly endeavor.Originality/value:This study provides the first ranking of all academic institutions worldwide over Fields,Disciplines,and Specialties based on a unique methodology that quantifies the productivity,impact,and quality of individual scholars.

Towards impact tenacity of academic institutions: A case study in Informetrics

Academic institutions are important subjects of discipline construction and knowledge production.It is crucial to study and evaluate the impact of institutions,and scientific evaluation is conducive to the development of academic institutions and the improvement of organizational efficiency.Most of the existing bibliometric indicators measure the impact of academic institutions from the perspective of citations(or variations).In this paper,we focus on a different side of their impact,namely tenacity.We conceptualize impact tenacity of academic institutions and define a series of indicators for operationalization.Besides,we implement correlation analysis and principal component analysis to explore whether the impact tenacity indicators and other bibliometric indicators are related and on the same dimension,taking informetrics as the representative discipline.We find that there was a significant negative correlation between the defined impact tenacity and number of papers,number of citations,and number of authors,and involved indicators(i.e.,impact tenacity and other involved bibliometric indicators)describe two almost orthogonal dimensions.Moreover,this paper also selects the Max Planck Society and Taiwan Applied Research Laboratories(China)as case studies,and reveals that low-tenacity and high-tenacity institutions have quite different characteristics.Based on these findings,we make some constructive suggestions for research policy makers,such as considering maintaining a high tenacity of institutions by supplementing more academic training.

Humanitarian action in academic institutions:a case study in the ethical stewardship of unidentified forensic cases

Forensic anthropologists are often responsible for the management of long-term unidentified individuals.Others have contextualised these decedents—many of whom likely belonged to socially,politically,and/or economically marginalised groups in life—as part of a larger identification crisis in the US.However,there has been little discussion surrounding how this humanitarian crisis has manifested in academic institutions,where anthropologists often provide medicolegal consultation and act as long-term stewards of the unidentified.The Identification&Repatriation Initiative was created at the Forensic Anthropology Centre at Texas State University(FACTS)to recognise and investigate unidentified human remains in long-term storage.Our paper outlines common challenges that were encountered during our initial reassessment of unidentified cases at FACTS,emphasising the detrimental impacts of inconsistent procedures,loss of context,and case fatigue.It is likely that other academic institutions face similar challenges,and by highlighting these issues we hope to help initiate a larger conversation concerning ethical stewardship of human remains in these settings.By incorporating humanitarian perspectives into forensic casework,anthropologists in academia can better advocate for the long-term unidentified.

Academic Research in China on National Human Rights Institutions

I. Symposium on National Human Rights Institutions and Research Topics Academic research in the Chinese mainland on national human rights institutions started in February 2003. From October 16-17, 2004, the China University of Political Science and Law organized an international sympo- sium in Qingdao, Shandong Province, on research about national human rights protection institutions, inviting experts from Australia, South Africa and Canada to brief the symposium on related information concerning the Asia-Pacific region and South Africa as well as to provide information about Canada＇s National Human Rights Commission. Chinese participants also discussed the possibility of establishing a national human rights organization in China.

Medical School Students’ Knowledge of Pain and Palliative Care: An Observational Study

Background: Pain and palliative care are a reality in daily routines of medical treatment. However, the theoretical-practical curricula of traditional medical school course still unsatisfactorily contemplate pain management, as well as the palliative care approach. Objective: To assess the knowledge of medical students about pain and palliative care, as well as to identify their perception of teaching these topics during hospitalization. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study, with a descriptive and exploratory approach, data collection for which was carried out between August and November 2020. The target population was medical students, who responded to an online survey of a quantitative, anonymous and follow-up nature. The survey study variables concerned knowledge about pain management and palliative care. Results: An expressive majority of academics showed difficulty in understanding the pathophysiology of pain related to prescribing drugs for pain management purposes, and all of them believe that it is necessary to acquire more knowledge about pain treatment. In parallel, only 9.3% report having received sufficient information regarding palliative care during medical school. Conclusion: The results suggest a certain lack of knowledge and insecurity among medical school students with respect to pain management and care for patients receiving palliative care. The didactical approach to this theme is still deficient in the medical curriculum and requires immediate improvement and new proposals that address the training of these professionals in a more specific and effective way.

Inequality in the Ivory Tower： Sub-Representation of Arab Citizensin Israeli Universities

Research on minority representation in academia has not receive serious scholarly attention until recently, apparently due to the belief that academia is a paragon of liberalism, openness and equal opportunity, however, the few studies that were conducted have completely contradicted this assumption. This paper deals with the representation of Arab citizens in Israel＇s academia, universities in particular. The StudyI explores the representation/sub-representation of Arabcitizens in three main areas： The percentage of Arab students （from the BA to the Doctoral level）; representation in faculties; and representation on permanent administrative staff. The paper offers up-to-date and precise data, which we received from the academic institutions themselves, and tries to lay the infrastructure for a broader and more in-depth study, which will deal with the barriers facing Arab citizens in Israeli universities.

The status of Earth Observation(EO)&Geo-Information Sciences in Africa-trends and challenges

Over the last 20 years,Africa has witnessed a slow but steady advancement in space-based technologies as they are increasingly recognized as an essential tool for decision-making that can leapfrog African development.A critical review on the outcome of a survey questionnaire focused on African private sector industries and universities,services and education/training in EO and Geo-Information Sciences,combined with literature review,and personal contacts reveal optimism for success in four sectors.These include the public sector(Government ministries and departments);Academic institutions(universities/colleges/national or regional centers);and space agencies and private sector companies.These sectors are intertwined and fundamental for creating an enabling environment for solutions to a broad spectrum of pressing priorities:job creation,poverty alleviation,and sustainable resource management.The result shows that there is an uptake in the number of institutions and market segments created.To date,there are more than 90 academic institutions and over 53 national space agencies in 28 countries.Within the 53 national space agencies,11 African countries have already launched a total of 36 satellites into orbit,and additional five are expected by the first quarter of 2021;another five by 2025;thus,amounting to 46 satellites not foreseen ten years ago.In addition,there are now ten receiving and tracking stations in six African countries and 17 scientific National Associations or Societies with specialized expertise in Geo-Information technologies.The updated survey on the private sector in 2019 ascertained that around 4110 people are working in 130 of the 229 EO and Geo-Information Science companies identified in Africa.Ongoing investigations reiterate that companies dealing with space-based datasets and Geo-Information Sciences together with the private spin-off companies today absorb more than 15,000 people and the assumption is that this number is going to exceed 100,000 by the year 2025.