05th QS University Rankings and Evaluation Workshop attended by Dr. R.Chandramouli, Dean, Assessment & Evaluation, GMU & Mr. Vinod Abraham, Asst. Director-External & International Affairs, GMU .

The key objective of the Workshop is to address the issues in promoting rankings on the world stage for the universities in the Middle East and Africa.  The workshop discussed the indicators included to evaluate the overall position of a University.

Dr. R.Chandramouli, Dean, Assessment & Evaluation, GMU  & Mr. Vinod Abraham, Assistant Director-External & International Affairs, GMU attended the 05^th QS University Rankings and Evaluation Workshop which was held on May 03, 2011 at Dubai Knowledge Village, Dubai.  The Speakers included John O Leary, Editor – OS Higher Education World, Nunzio Quacquarelli, Managing Director – QS Quacquarelli, Symonds, Yasushi Adachi, Elsvier, Wyatt Humme, Provost –U.A.E.University, Isidro F Aguillo, Cybermetrics Lab and Deena Al – Hilli, Project Manager, QS Stars, Middle East Region.  The sessions were followed by question and answers and panel discussion on future rankings.

The workshop focused on the parametric used for evaluation of global rankings and deliberated on the justification for inclusion of research quality, teaching quality, graduate employability and international outlook in the assessment methods.  The global ranking of a university is based on the evaluation of the indicators such as Academic reputation (40%), Citations per faculty (20%), Employability (10%), Student faculty ratio (20%), International students (5%) and International faculty (5%).

The workshop also highlighted a new forum of university evaluation called QS Stars.  Universities are awarded a number of stars (upto five) based on their overall performance in the audit, alongside star ratings in each of the individual assessed criteria.  Furthermore, the QS stars uses a wide range of indicators for measuring the performance of an institution.  The star rating of an institution or its individual performance indicators will highlight the strengths which could be projected as areas of excellence.