posted on 2024-07-10, 00:31authored byScott Thompson-Whiteside
Rankings in higher education are now common, but do they
mean anything? Can they accurately reflect the quality of an institution?
University rankings, while imperfect, serve as a proxy for comparative
measures of quality. This paper begins by providing a philosophical and
historical profile of the notion of “quality,” considers what might constitute
quality in higher education, and examines how rankings specifically convey
this impression for the disciplines of art and design. The paper illustrates
the wider role played by rankings in the highly competitive international
higher education sector by exploring the various types of rankings, their
methodologies, and the criteria they use to measure institutions. It highlights
how different rankings measure different research and teaching
activities, and the various tensions that can arise across disciplinary
boundaries; among institutional and departmental priorities; in research,
teaching and learning; and across national and international dimensions
within the fields of art and design when rankings compare unique offerings
quantitatively.