A Review on the Major Global University Ranking Systems and the Turkish Universities’ Overall Position in Rankings

Abstract

Amidst the increasingly competitive environment in the field of higher education, world ranking systems have gained more research attention in recent years. In this article, the main objectives are to attract attention of especially Turkish academics and policy makers to university ranking systems in the world and to show the overall position of Turkish universities in these ranking systems. With this aim, the major rankings were specially examined in terms of their measurements from the original websites of them. As a result of this review, the position of Turkish universities among the top 500 universities in these rankings over a six-year period are determined from 2011 to 2016; then, obtained data through the original websites of these ranking systems and the reports of the URAP are compiled and presented in tables. Two issues can be observed from the study: research performance is one of the major indicators used in all world ranking systems, and the overall position of Turkish universities in such rankings is not very good. This article can help all staff in academia provide the better understand the goals, importance and measurements of ranking systems and Turkish Universities’ position in these rankings. Thus, the study tries to create awareness about the need of improving their position. After this paper, the further research is likely to examine the concept of research performance as an important criterion of determining the universities’ position in the major world rankings to obtain a broad and comprehensive perspective.