Promoting Assessments of Academic Performance in Earth and Space Sciences: The Role of AGU

Abstract:

Assessment reports are released annually by several organizations, which rank world universities including rankings by disciplines/subjects. These rankings are based on different criteria/indicators/indices assigned by the organizations. Among the criteria are those related to academic (e.g., research productivity, impact, and excellence) and education performances, knowledge transfer, and international collaboration. The same university gets different ranking in different assessment reports based on the criteria used. For example, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is ranked as #39 in subject area of "Geosciences" among the best world universities according to the National Taiwan University (NTU), #53 by the U.S. News (USN), and #110 by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (ARWU) ranking reports. I found that the significant discrepancy in ranking was associated basically with the definition of the subject area. The subject area of "Geosciences" is defined by NTU and USN in a broad sense covering many disciplines related to Earth and space sciences, similar to AGU/IUGG. ARWU splits Earth science disciplines into subjects - geosciences, oceanography, and atmospheric sciences - and it ranks the KIT’s "Atmospheric Sciences" higher than its "Geosciences". Therefore, a proper assessment of universities by a subject area should be based on a strict definition of the subject area. Also, assessments of an academic performance should be based on an averaged weighted (based on the academic performance criteria) ranking to account for many criteria/indicators/indices of the performance. For example, considering simple (same weighting) average ranking by five assessment reports, the KIT's "Geosciences" can be ranked as #77 among the best world universities and #5 among the best German universities. To improve assessment and ranking of universities, AGU could establish a working group to determine basic evaluation criteria/indicators/indices in the subject area of “Geosciences” to be used in assessments of knowledge production in Earth and space sciences by universities and other academic institutions. This should also include an assessment of inter- and trans-disciplinary scientific knowledge creation as well as an academic performance in terms of basic geosciences to benefit the societies.