A new ranking for Islamic universities
University World News has a story about another international ranking, this time for Islamic universities:
The Iran-based Islamic World Science Citation Center has launched a new classification system for Islamic universities, using the criteria of research and education performance, international cooperation and scientific impact. The first phase of the system has been implemented by ranking Iran’s universities and research institutes.
Extracting data from databases such as ISI, Scopus and Google Scholar allows for powerful and useful analysis for evaluating research performance from an international perspective. But this is inadequate for assessing scientific research in Islamic universities, as most of the Islamic countries’ journals are not covered – especially those not using English.
The new Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) classification system uses key performance indicators, including research (50%), education (35%), international outlook (7%), facilities (3%) and socio-economic impact (5%). The system extracts data both from direct contact with universities and from institutions’ research journals, which are collected and processed in different subsystems of the ISC.
Extracting data from databases such as ISI, Scopus and Google Scholar allows for powerful and useful analysis for evaluating research performance from an international perspective. But this is inadequate for assessing scientific research in Islamic universities, as most of the Islamic countries’ journals are not covered – especially those not using English.It seems that the heart of this is the journal issue. Is this just about language or is it subject matter? In any case, it will be interesting to see how this one pans out and how many institutions feature in both this and the other international tables.
