15 August 2011

ANU second best in Australia and 70th in the world?

| johnboy
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The Australian brings word of the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities which has seen the departure of a few top researchers cause ANU to drop in the ratings.

While he [Professor Marginson] said ANU’s slide in the world rankings was of concern, he noted the HiCi indicator was the cause of much of the variance This measures the performance of the elite highly cited researchers and slipped from 36 in 2010 to 33.9 in 2011, bringing with it the university’s overall score down from 29.6 to 28.6. The HiCi can drop if one or two senior researchers retire.

Tony Sheil, deputy director, research policy at Griffith and a rankings expert, said ANU’s result against the rest of the world might also reflect it being overtaken by other universities, that benefited from shifts such as mergers, which tend to boost research performance.

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marc_georges1:23 pm 17 Aug 11

switch said :

Classified said :

[
ANU’s Engineering has always been a bit thin. UC’s was quite good, but has also slipped significantly over the past 10 or so years.

Yes, UC’s was quite good, but has been totally non-existent since 2007 or so! Where have you been? (And no, their Bachelor of Software Engineering is NOT an engineering degree as recognised by Engineers Australia).

True, UC’s Software Eng degree is not accredited by Engineers Australia but the recently revived BE(Network & Software Eng) on offer is provisionally and ‘expected to be fully’ accredited by EA.

Classified said :

[
ANU’s Engineering has always been a bit thin. UC’s was quite good, but has also slipped significantly over the past 10 or so years.

Yes, UC’s was quite good, but has been totally non-existent since 2007 or so! Where have you been? (And no, their Bachelor of Software Engineering is NOT an engineering degree as recognised by Engineers Australia).

Waiting For Godot said :

They don’t call the ANU The University of East Bumcrack for nothing. Too much time wasting their research grants on stupid nonsense like romance surveys, climate change, political correctness and other crap.

The Uni of Melbourne obviously reached the top by doing the traditional educational stuff the ANU used to do before they lost it.

There are many lists of ‘what university is the best in the world/Australia’. Looking at them all and averaging them out, ANU and Uni of Melbourne are about equal – depending on the methods of ranking used.

Regardless, it’s very clear that the Uni of Melbourne and ANU are the top 2 Australian Universities, and both rank extremely well internationally.

If you take this to mean that either of these joints is “the University of East Bumcrack”, then I’d suggest you remove your head from out of your own bumcrack.

LSWCHP said :

What’s really bugged me is the quality of some of the engineering graduates I’ve interviewed for jobs over the last few yearsy.

Unless its software engineering, i’d be looking for graduates from UNSW :/

Waiting For Godot9:40 am 16 Aug 11

They don’t call the ANU The University of East Bumcrack for nothing. Too much time wasting their research grants on stupid nonsense like romance surveys, climate change, political correctness and other crap.

The Uni of Melbourne obviously reached the top by doing the traditional educational stuff the ANU used to do before they lost it.

LSWCHP said :

creative_canberran said :

PantsMan said :

The ANU JD sounds a whole lot better than it is! They want the money from a postgrad law degree, but they want to teach you like an undergraduate course.

Under 2000 words of assessment in some subjects; mostly, it seems, so that overworked academics don’t have to read more than 1000 words at a time. In my other degree, the mid-semester was at least 3000, and all original research.

It gets better, the undergraduate assignment for one law course has been changed from 2,500 research essay to a 5000 word “collaborative essay” done by groups of 5 people who then self assess themselves at the end. WTF????

I don’t want want to dump on lawyers too much, but really, what do you expect from a bunch of lawyers?

What’s really bugged me is the quality of some of the engineering graduates I’ve interviewed for jobs over the last few years. Some of those people show not the slightest sign of being geeks, and many definitely do not have The Knack.

Given that these are the people who will be building things like the bridges we drive over (GDE, anyone?) it’s a bit of a worry.

ANU’s Engineering has always been a bit thin. UC’s was quite good, but has also slipped significantly over the past 10 or so years.

creative_canberran said :

PantsMan said :

The ANU JD sounds a whole lot better than it is! They want the money from a postgrad law degree, but they want to teach you like an undergraduate course.

Under 2000 words of assessment in some subjects; mostly, it seems, so that overworked academics don’t have to read more than 1000 words at a time. In my other degree, the mid-semester was at least 3000, and all original research.

It gets better, the undergraduate assignment for one law course has been changed from 2,500 research essay to a 5000 word “collaborative essay” done by groups of 5 people who then self assess themselves at the end. WTF????

I don’t want want to dump on lawyers too much, but really, what do you expect from a bunch of lawyers?

What’s really bugged me is the quality of some of the engineering graduates I’ve interviewed for jobs over the last few years. Some of those people show not the slightest sign of being geeks, and many definitely do not have The Knack.

Given that these are the people who will be building things like the bridges we drive over (GDE, anyone?) it’s a bit of a worry.

creative_canberran9:27 pm 15 Aug 11

PantsMan said :

The ANU JD sounds a whole lot better than it is! They want the money from a postgrad law degree, but they want to teach you like an undergraduate course.

Under 2000 words of assessment in some subjects; mostly, it seems, so that overworked academics don’t have to read more than 1000 words at a time. In my other degree, the mid-semester was at least 3000, and all original research.

It gets better, the undergraduate assignment for one law course has been changed from 2,500 research essay to a 5000 word “collaborative essay” done by groups of 5 people who then self assess themselves at the end. WTF????

creative_canberran said :

Over at the law school, ANU will accept JD students who have a Pass average in their current undergrad degree. Melbourne needs a Distinction average.

The ANU JD sounds a whole lot better than it is! They want the money from a postgrad law degree, but they want to teach you like an undergraduate course.

Under 2000 words of assessment in some subjects; mostly, it seems, so that overworked academics don’t have to read more than 1000 words at a time. In my other degree, the mid-semester was at least 3000, and all original research.

creative_canberran4:51 pm 15 Aug 11

EvanJames said :

That is a real shame. Not so long ago, the ANU was in the top 20. In the world.

Just to be clear, that ranking was in the now defunct Times Education rankings where ANU was 17, SydU and MelbU were in the 30s. Different ranking lists.

creative_canberran4:49 pm 15 Aug 11

A PHD/researcher was recently poached by Uni of Melbourne from ANU, so it’s not just retirements, these Unis are competing. And frankly ANU doesn’t offer much to keep these people on board. He received the offer and walked out two weeks before he was due to teach a course. The discontent among academics at ANU is incredibly high.

Over at the law school, ANU will accept JD students who have a Pass average in their current undergrad degree. Melbourne needs a Distinction average.

If you can’t compete for the academics and you’re willing to settle for second rate students to make a buck, this is what happens.

That is a real shame. Not so long ago, the ANU was in the top 20. In the world.

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