School-leavers exploring the dizzying array of options for further study now have a new tool at their disposal.
The U-Multirank, which was almost eight years in gestation, allows students and their parents to evaluate the comparative strengths and weaknesses of more than 850 higher education institutions globally.
The EU-sponsored, online initiative aims to overcome some of the problems with commercial rankings, long criticised for producing "crude" league tables and "doctoring" results with highly selective criteria.
'Way forward'
U-Multirank seeks to put the power back into the hands of students, allowing them to differentiate on the basis of what matters
most to them.
"It's definitely the way forward," says Ellen Hazelkorn, director of research at Dublin Institute of Technology and an international expert on university rankings.
“A lot of the rankings are very misleading. I think this goes a long way to providing more meaningful information. It also shows, in this day and age, it’s not possible for publicly funded institutions to not disclose what they are doing.”
Several other evaluation tools have been introduced in recent years, including the Higher Education Authority performance profiles of Irish institutions.
U-Multirank, however, allows comparisons both across borders and across areas of expertise, from research to internationalisation.
'Powerful tool'
There is pleasing news for institutes of
technology here, but also for Irish universities, which are shown to be competing with some of the best institutions globally.
On average, U-Multirank lifts the status of European universities compared to American ones. This is almost certainly linked to the fact it has drawn more data from within the EU than outside, although the researchers behind U-Multirank say it merely redresses the imbalance in commercial rankings.
“It could be a powerful tool for Europe, and for selling good quality higher education in Europe,” notes Hazelkorn.
The ranking, however, has also produced some anomalies, such as DCU’s E-grade in artistic output. The university believes it should have received a “not applicable” mark as it has no arts department.
