Anthony Welch & Jun Li 
Measuring Up in Higher Education 
How University Rankings and League Tables are Re-shaping Knowledge Production in the Global Era

This book examines the quality assessment movement in academic scholarship, as globalization prompts a search for global measures of university services and output.  It gauges productivity in terms of universal publication metrics, and considers ranking and research productivity from a comparative perspective. The book considers the use of the “impact factor” as a gauge of publication value, noting that this less important in countries lacking central government appropriations to universities and to research. It argues that pressure to publish in certain journals, and to research topics of interest to English language readers, has been felt differentially in English-language systems, compared to others, but also that performance pressures fall more on younger, more juniour, contract staff, than on senior and tenured professors. It problematizes international comparisons of quality, and analyses the benefits of a zone of ideas and metrics in a common language – promoting international mobility, efficiency, collaboration – but also the costs which are rarely borne equally across countries, languages and cultures. The book provides a strong, evidence-based contribution to major debates in contemporary higher education reforms and the measurement of academic output.

Table of Content

The Global Ranking Regime and the Redefined Mission of Higher Education in the Post-Covid Era.- An Introduction.- Conceptualization and Theory Building.- Rank Scholarship Today.- Local Knowledge When Ranking Journals.- The Ranking Regime and the Production of Knowledge.- Academic Publishing in South African Universities.- Vernacular Scholarship.- The SSCI Syndrome.- Cases, Contexts and Reflections.- Comparative Case Studies on Research Assessment Exercises in China, Hong Kong, and Japan.- Measuring by Numbers.- The Case of Taiwan.- The Paradox of Autonomy.- The Shifting Sands of Academic Output.- Audit Culture and Academic Production.- Global Research Productivity Rivalry.- Actors and Roles.- In League: The Brave New World of Higher Education.- Conclusion.

 

 

About the author

Anthony Welch is Professor of Education at the University of Sydney, Australia. His numerous publications, that have been published in 12 languages, address education reforms, principally within Australia, and the Asia-Pacific, and mainly on Higher Education. His recent books include The Professoriate: Profile of a Profession (2005), Education, Change and Society (2017), ASEAN Industries and the Challenge from China (2011), Counting the Cost: Financing Higher Education for Inclusive Growth in Asia (2012) and Higher Education in South East Asia; Blurring Borders, Changing Balance. (2011).

 
Jun Li is Chair and Professor of Critical Policy, Equity and Leadership Studies at the Faculty of Education, Western University, Canada, with recent focus on educational improvement studies. Currently he serves as an Advisory Board Member for Comparative Education Review and a co-founding editor of the CIES Book Series on Education in Global Perspective. His new publications include “Autonomy, Governance and the Chinese University 3.0: A Zhong-Yong Model from Comparative, Cultural and Contemporary Perspectives” (The China Quarterly, 244[4], 2020) and single-authored “Quest for World-Class Teacher Education? A Multiperspectival Study on the Chinese Model of Policy Implementation” (Springer, 2016).