文/肖恩·科赫蘭 譯/周忠花

世界前十大學(xué)如何煉成？

文/肖恩·科赫蘭 譯/周忠花

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is in fi rst place in the latest league table1league table 名次表，排名表。of the world’s best universities.

[2] It’s the fi fth year in a row that the US university, famous for its science and technology research, has been top of the QS World University Rankings2由英國教育組織Quacquarelli Symonds所發(fā)表的年度世界大學(xué)排名。.

[3] Stanford University is in second place, followed by Harvard University,the world’s wealthiest university.

[4] Behind these in fourth place is University of Cambridge, followed by California Institute of Technology(Caltech), another science-based university.

[5] With King’s College London in 16th place, it means that Britain has five institutions in the top 20. Edinburgh University is 19th and there are two Swiss institutions, ETH Zurich and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, in this top tier.

[6] But US universities are still in the majority, taking 11 of the places in the top 20.

[7] Even though some university leaders might be sceptical3sceptical懷疑的。about such rankings, they will all be sharply4sharply鮮明地；明顯地。aware of their signi fi cance.

Mike Nicholson, Oxford University’s head of admissions, says: “It’s fair to say that it would be a foolish university that did not pay close attention to how league tables are constructed.”

[8] Rankings have become an inescapable5inescapable不可避免的，不能忽視的。part of the reputation and brand image of universities, helping them to attract students, staff and research investment.

No university website is complete without the claim to be in the top 100 for something or other.

How to be top

[9] But what is perhaps more surprising is that they are a relatively recent arrival on the higher education landscape.

[10] This is only the twelfth year of the QS rankings and the earliest global league table, the Academic Ranking of World Universities6世界大學(xué)學(xué)術(shù)排名為中國國家級研究項目，由中國政府授權(quán)上海交通大學(xué)世界一流大學(xué)研究中心根據(jù)研究結(jié)果每年發(fā)布一次。, produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was fi rst published in 2003.

[11] They have risen alongside the globalisation of higher education and the sharing of information online.

[12] But how does a university get to the top of the rankings? And why does such a small group of institutions seem to have an iron grip7iron grip牢牢控制。on the top places?

[13] The biggest single factor in the QS rankings is academic reputation.This is calculated by surveying more than 60,000 academics around the world about their opinion on the merits of institutions other than their own.

Ben Sowter, managing director of the QS, says this means that universities with an established name and a strong brand are likely to do better.

[14] The next biggest factor—“citations per faculty”—looks at the strength of research in universities, calculated in terms of the number of times research work is cited by other researchers.

[15] The ratio of academic staff to students represents another big chunk8chunk 〈非正式〉相當(dāng)大的量。of how the rankings are decided.

Big brands

[16] These three elements, reputation, research citations and staff ratios,account for four-fifths of the rankings.And there are also marks for being more international, in terms of academic staff and students.

[17] As a template for success, it means that the winners are likely to be large, prestigious, research-intensive universities, with strong science departments and lots of international collaborations.

[18] Is that a fair way to rank universities? It makes no reference to the quality of teaching or the abilities of students?

“We don’t take an exhaustive9exhaustive詳盡的；徹底的。view of what universities are doing,” says Mr Sowter. “It’s always going to be a blunt instrument,” which he says is both the strength and weakness of such lists.

Immigration points

[19] The overall effect of a decade of such league tables has been beneficial,Mr Sowter argues. It has made universities take a closer look at themselves to see how they compared with rivals.

[20] But the creation of such a ranking has a dynamic10dynamic推動變化的力量。of its own—and Mr Sowter says there have been unintended consequences.

“Some fixate on it too closely,” he says. Improving their ranking position has been written into the mission statements of some universities.

[21] It has also taken on a quasiofficial status. Denmark’s immigration system gives extra points to graduate applicants according to how high their university is ranked.

[22] The pressure to get up the ladder has also pushed some universities into trying to bend the rules, says Mr Sowter, with incorrect data being submitted.

Multi-ranking

[23] Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, cautions on what is actually being measured. Should non-research universities be compared in rankings designed for research-intensive universities?

[24] An attempt to create a different type of university comparison was launched in 2014 by the European Union, with the U-Multirank project11多維度全球大學(xué)排名由歐盟發(fā)起，在五個維度——科研水平、教學(xué)質(zhì)量、國際化程度、知識轉(zhuǎn)化成果（與企業(yè)合作和創(chuàng)業(yè)）和地區(qū)建設(shè)參與度上對各機(jī)構(gòu)進(jìn)行比較，可提供其整體排名以及在某具體領(lǐng)域上的排名。.

[25] This puts less emphasis on reputation and allows students to select their own criteria to make comparisons.

[26] The idea is that a student wanting to fi nd an undergraduate arts course isn’t really going to learn much from rankings driven by international science research projects.

[27] There could be another entirely different way of comparing universities on the horizon.

[28] Andreas Schleicher, the OECD12=Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development經(jīng)濟(jì)合作與發(fā)展組織，簡稱經(jīng)合組織。’s director of education, who has pioneered Pisa13=Program for International Student Assessment,一項由經(jīng)合組織統(tǒng)籌的學(xué)生能力國際評估計劃。主要對接近完成基礎(chǔ)教育的15歲學(xué)生進(jìn)行評估，測試學(xué)生們能否掌握參與社會所需要的知識與技能。tests at school level, wants to begin comparisons in higher education. He says there is a public demand for assessing the quality of universities.

But rather than looking at what goes into universities—such as money, staff and facilities—he wants to find out more about the output in the form of what students are learning.

[29] It’s not dif fi cult to see the limitations of university rankings. They measure the attributes14attribute屬性，特性。of the university rather than its students. They produce a list dominated by a certain of type of institution. Small, specialist, arts-based colleges are going to suffer regardless of their quality.

[30] Those that focus on teaching rather than research will not be as recognised. The emphasis on reputation will reinforce the advantage of those that are already famous. And the top tier of these global rankings is exclusively filled with English-speaking universities.

[31] But such lists still exert155 exert施加；運用。an undeniable166 undeniable不可否認(rèn)的；確鑿的。, attention-grabbing appeal.

“The fact that people argue about league tables is a trigger17trigger（尤指引發(fā)不良反應(yīng)或發(fā)展的）起因。for change,”says Mr Sowter. ■

英國教育機(jī)構(gòu)QS最新發(fā)布的世界大學(xué)排名顯示，麻省理工學(xué)院位列第一。

[2]這已經(jīng)是這所素以科研見長的美國高校連續(xù)五年蟬聯(lián)榜首了。

[3]斯坦福大學(xué)位列第二，世界上最富有的大學(xué)哈佛大學(xué)緊隨其后。

[4]排名第四的是劍橋大學(xué)，而另一所以理科為主的大學(xué)加州理工學(xué)院則位居第五。

[5]英國在世界排名前20的大學(xué)中共占據(jù)5席，包括名列第16名的倫敦國王學(xué)院和第19名的愛丁堡大學(xué)。瑞士同樣謀得兩席，分別是蘇黎世聯(lián)邦理工學(xué)院和洛桑聯(lián)邦理工學(xué)院。

[6]但是美國的大學(xué)仍屬多數(shù)，前20名中占據(jù)了11席。

[7]盡管一些高校領(lǐng)導(dǎo)會對這些名次心存懷疑，他們也清楚地意識到這些排名的意義所在。

牛津大學(xué)招生辦主任邁克·尼科爾森說：“于高校而言，不去密切關(guān)注大學(xué)排行榜的制定標(biāo)準(zhǔn)實非明智之舉?！?/p>

[8]學(xué)校排名已固化為高校知名度和品牌形象的一部分，領(lǐng)先的排名有助于吸引生源、師資和科研資金投入。

若不聲稱本校是某領(lǐng)域的百強(qiáng)，哪家學(xué)校的網(wǎng)站都談不上完整。

如何躋身榜單

[9]更令人驚訝的是，大學(xué)排名是高等教育界近些年才出現(xiàn)的新生事物。

[10] QS世界大學(xué)排名榜僅有12年歷史，而最早的全球大學(xué)排行榜是由中國上海交通大學(xué)發(fā)布的世界大學(xué)學(xué)術(shù)排名，首次發(fā)布于2003年。

[11]世界大學(xué)排行榜是隨著高等教育全球化和網(wǎng)絡(luò)信息分享的發(fā)展應(yīng)運而生的。

[12]但是一所大學(xué)究竟怎樣才能位居前列呢？為什么少數(shù)學(xué)校似乎一直都能穩(wěn)坐江山？

[13]在QS世界大學(xué)排名中最為關(guān)鍵的因素在于學(xué)術(shù)聲望。針對這一項指標(biāo)，全球六萬多名學(xué)者將會接受調(diào)查，對排除自身所在學(xué)校的其他高校做出評價，由此來計算不同大學(xué)的聲譽指數(shù)。

“這意味著有強(qiáng)大品牌影響力的名校更容易上榜?！盦S機(jī)構(gòu)的常務(wù)董事本·索特說。

[14]其次頗為重要的因素是 “單位教職的論文引用數(shù)”，即通過統(tǒng)計高校研究成果被其他學(xué)者引用的次數(shù)來反映高校的科研水平。

[15]與此同時，教師與學(xué)生的比例也會從很大程度上影響大學(xué)的排名。

優(yōu)勢品牌

[16]學(xué)術(shù)聲望、論文引用數(shù)和師生比例，這三大因素在評定排名時占了80%的比重。除此之外，師資隊伍和學(xué)生群體的國際化程度高也有加分。

[17]分析來看，名列前茅的都是規(guī)模龐大、享有盛譽的研究型高校。它們普遍擁有實力雄厚的科研院系和數(shù)量眾多的境外合作單位。

[18]這樣的排名方式公平嗎？完全不考慮教學(xué)質(zhì)量和學(xué)生素質(zhì)嗎？

“我們不對高校作全面考核?！彼魈叵壬f，“一向使用這種直截了當(dāng)?shù)脑u估手段?！彼f這既是這類排行榜的優(yōu)勢，也是它們的劣勢。

移民加分項

[19]索特先生認(rèn)為，這十年來大學(xué)排行榜的發(fā)布整體而言是有益的，它使各高校進(jìn)一步認(rèn)清自己與競爭院校的差別。

[20]這項排名的產(chǎn)生本身帶有一種推動變革的力量，而且在索特先生看來，它已經(jīng)帶來了一些意料之外的影響。

“有些高校太注重排名了,甚至將提升學(xué)校的排名寫入了他們的辦學(xué)宗旨?！彼魈叵壬f。

[21]目前，這樣的世界大學(xué)排名已經(jīng)成為了一種半官方的認(rèn)證。例如，丹麥移民系統(tǒng)會根據(jù)研究生學(xué)歷的移民申請人的畢業(yè)院校排名酌情給予加分。

[22]索特先生說，迫于晉升名次的壓力，有些大學(xué)甚至試圖打破規(guī)矩，提交虛假數(shù)據(jù)。

多標(biāo)準(zhǔn)排名

[23]波士頓學(xué)院國際高等教育中心主任菲利普·阿爾特巴克提醒人們關(guān)注排行榜所評估的內(nèi)容。以研究型高校的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來評估非研究型高校究竟是否合適？

[24] 2014年，歐盟曾推出多維度全球大學(xué)排名以打造一種全新的大學(xué)評價方式。

[25]在這一全新的排名中，學(xué)術(shù)聲望所占比重大大降低，學(xué)生可以按照自己的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)作比較。

[26]這種設(shè)計的出發(fā)點在于，一個想找到人文類本科課程的學(xué)生根本難以從側(cè)重國際科研項目的排行榜中獲取有價值的信息。

[27]或許不久的將來還會出現(xiàn)另一種與以往評估方式截然不同的大學(xué)排行榜。

[28]經(jīng)合組織教育委員會主任安德烈亞斯·施萊克爾曾率先發(fā)起國際學(xué)生評估項目，旨在評測各國的基礎(chǔ)教育，現(xiàn)在，他將目光投向了高等教育。他表示公眾希望能夠以某種方式評估高校質(zhì)量。

但是施萊克爾先生并沒有關(guān)注大學(xué)在經(jīng)費、師資和設(shè)備等方面的投入，而更注重大學(xué)的產(chǎn)出，即學(xué)生在學(xué)些什么。

[29]事實上，高校排行榜的局限性顯而易見。評比過程中并沒有考慮學(xué)生的因素，而僅僅關(guān)注了學(xué)校的各項特征。因此，某些特定類型的學(xué)府便總是能上榜。而那些規(guī)模不大、獨具特色、尤擅文科的大學(xué)則不管水平高低都只能對著排行榜望洋興嘆。

[30]同樣，那些較之科研更側(cè)重教學(xué)的高校也得不到認(rèn)可。注重學(xué)校聲望的大學(xué)排名會進(jìn)一步加強(qiáng)名校的優(yōu)勢，而在這些世界排名中，名列前茅的毫無例外都是用英語授課的大學(xué)。

[31]但不可否認(rèn)的是，這樣的大學(xué)排名依然能夠吸人眼球。

索特先生表示，“人們對大學(xué)排名的爭議正是其尋求改變的契機(jī)?！?□

（譯者曾獲第五屆“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽優(yōu)秀獎）

What Makes a Global Top 10 University?

BySean Coughlan