Policy discussions related to higher education in sub-Saharan Africa often include concerns related to quality. Rather than being an abstract characteristic, quality of higher education is the result of a series of actions and practices, and yet there is limited research on the practices associated with quality in higher education in Africa. This…

This study examines the feasibility of publication imports that may significantly change school rankings in higher education. A small offshore branch campus is used as a case study. The results show that a higher ranking of the offshore campus is largely due to visiting faculties from its parent university in the United States. This implies that…

The visions of the top 26 world-class universities of the first 30 in the Shanghai ranking list have been evaluated and compared with the missions of the world's top 20 universities. Applying the content analysis, a group of 48 keywords, which describe the essence of these visions, has been revealed. The average amount of keywords in one vision is…

The top-ranking world-class universities in agricultural science denote those universities which are globally popular with agriculture-related subjects. The paper synthesizes the results of three different ranking scales (NTU, QS and ARWU) of top 50 universities in agriculture subject in 2013. The overlapped parts have been synchronized to derive…

Given the visibility and popularity of rankings that encompass the measurement of quality of post-graduate courses, for instance, the MBA (Master of Business Administration) or graduate studies program (MSc and PhD) as do global academic rankings--Academic Ranking of World Universities-ARWU, Times Higher/Thomson Reuters World University Ranking…

Guided by the missions and visions, higher education institutions utilize benchmarking processes to identify better and more efficient ways to carry out their operations. Aside from the initial planning and organization steps involved in benchmarking, a matching or selection step is crucial for identifying other institutions that have good…

The purpose of this exploratory article is to broaden our understanding of institutional reputation. It argues that it is vital to understand how prestigious institutions of higher education evaluate the basis of their own reputations. While accepting the importance of institutional research outputs, which are so critical to the current…

While department and program quality rankings could be based on such factors as how well the faculty teach, advise students, and perform service roles, in practice most rankings measuring achievement in graduate departments have been based on faculty research performance of various kinds. (Author/MSE)

Research suggests that students make their college choice based on their perceptions of the institution's image. Smart, aggressive, well-administered institutions see their image as their most significant asset and manage it carefully by prioritizing audiences, conducting market research, establishing clear goals, planning, and implementing the…

The contribution of high school guidance counselors during the information and inquiry stages of students' selection of a college was assessed. A statewide population survey of all high school counselors in New York yielded 660 usable responses (20 percent). Attention is focused on quality estimations of four criteria for 15 institutions. Quality…

Debate grows over the validity and reliability of college and university rankings, which judge rather than describe institutions, as the public's willingness to accept them increases. While many institutional characteristics can be measured, measurement methods need improvement. One solution is to publish the peer studies that the institutions…