Questions over University of Newcastle's performance in QS World University Rankings

UON Vice Chancellor Alex Zelinsky welcomed in June 2021 the news that the institution had been ranked 197th for the second year in a row.

"Our sector has faced a second year of immense external challenges, so this outstanding result is testament to the resilience of our staff, students and partners," Professor Zelinsky said at the time.

UON also celebrated this month its improved performance in the QS World University Rankings by Subject.

However the National Tertiary Education Union Newcastle branch has raised concerns about the data used to calculate UON's ranking, specifically the number of UON students.

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The QS World University Rankings evaluates universities based on six metrics including a student to staff member ratio, which accounts for 20 per cent of a ranking.

The QS website listing for UON in August last year, shortly after rankings were published, said it had a total of 12,358 full time equivalent students and 1135 full time equivalent faculty staff, equal to a ratio of 11.

QS said institutional data is "based on the most recent full reporting year for the institution".

The student, staff and ratio numbers have since been removed from QS' listing for UON, but not for other universities.

QS was contacted for comment.

The figure of 12,358 is around half the number published by at least three other sources, including UON's own 2020 annual report, which - even when accounting for differences in methodology - all list UON's student number as roughly double 12,358.

NTEU Newcastle branch vice president (academic) Associate Professor Terrence Summers said the union raised the matter with UON at an October meeting.

"UON is a fantastic comprehensive university with outstanding staff and students - it just doesn't have a particularly low student to staff ratio," Dr Summers said.

"We were worried about reputational damage to the university from having the incorrect numbers reported to a world university ranking [publication] like QS. What we didn't want to happen was the university be found out as having made a stupid mistake."

Dr Summers said the union met with Deputy Vice Chancellor Global Professor Kent Anderson and Pro Vice Chancellor Academic Excellence Professor Jennifer Milam in February.

"I was told in no uncertain terms that they hadn't made an error, that it was a misinterpretation of instructions around data points," Dr Summers said.

"The university knows that the student to staff ratio numbers in the QS rankings are incorrect and it looks to me like they are spruiking their success based on what they know are incorrect figures. To me, that doesn't pass the pub test, it looks dodgy."

Professor Milam told the Newcastle Herald "university ranking systems utilise specific methodology to report on student numbers and teaching ratios".

"This methodology ensures universities can be fairly ranked against each other based on the same criteria," Professor Milam said.

"The specific methodology employed by ranking systems means that the total number of students and staff reported may differ between different ranking systems and reporting numbers.

"Some of the key differences in the way QS requires numbers to be reported as opposed to our usual reporting includes semester-based reporting rather than whole year reporting; reporting only Bachelor, Master and PhD courses; and reporting only on onshore and face-to-face students, meaning that, for example, our staff and students based in Singapore are excluded in the data provided."

QS' website said it asked universities for student and staff numbers.

"To some extent, this relies upon universities telling the truth," it said.

"However, if the figures look drastically different to previous years, we validate these figures against regional averages and validate the data against past submissions."

It said it was careful about making changes to indicators to ensure data was comparable year on year.

UON's own 2020 annual report showed its equivalent full time student load was 24,410, between undergraduate, postgraduate and higher degree research students.

It showed there were 54 full time equivalent staff in teaching only and 755 in teaching and research. While not explicitly listed, this is equal to a ratio of 30.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings published in September last year said UON had 23,706 full time equivalent students and a ratio of 29 students per staff member involved in teaching or research.

While not explicitly listed, this is equal to 817 staff.

The Department of Education Skills and Employment data for 2020 showed the UON onshore equivalent full-time student load was 25,208 students and there were 1017 full time equivalent academic staff, including casuals, who either taught or did teaching and research. The ratio was 24.78.

NTEU national president Dr Alison Barnes said the union was "highly critical and sceptical of any ranking system, especially when they are used to reduce the quality of research, teaching and community engagement undertaken by complex organisations like a university to a summary statistic to be included in league tables".

"Rankings, scores and metrics tend to undermine organisational quality assurance measures and encourage universities to game ranking systems and manipulate results in order to achieved better ranked positions in what is an artificial competition," Dr Barnes said.

"There is no direct government or intergovernmental involvement to oversee ranking systems. Yet they are often used by both the higher education sector and governments to determine teaching and research quality both nationally and internationally.

"Rankings systems are not able, nor do they intend to, reflect diversity of institutions and higher education systems, here and abroad."

UON has risen 71 places in the QS World University Rankings in a decade, up from 268th in 2012. Its position in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is relatively unchanged, from a range of 276th to 300th in 2012 to 251 to 300th this year.

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