Who or what is Scopus?
Scopus is the Elsevier database of bibliometric data. Or in other words, it is a product operated by Elsevier and is known as largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources.
What document types are used to extract citations?
All.
Scopus offers articles, conference papers, reviews, letters , editorials, short surveys, articles in press, notes, erratum, books, conference reviews, dissertations and reports.
Are self-citations in- or excluded?
In 2011 self-citations are excluded for the first time.
Do you apply any time frame?
Data is drawn from Scopus for a five year window – in case of the 2011 QS World University Rankings that is 2006-2010.
Does the five year window refer to citations of papers published only from this period OR to citations for all recorded papers regardless of publication year?
The numbers relate to publications during the given period and citations for those papers during the same period. Or in other words, the 5 year period refers to BOTH the publication cycle AND the citation window. So, we collect data for all 5 years and citation counts within the same 5 year period.
Why do our own figures differ from those QS retrieved from Scopus?
Numbers may differ from those retrieved from Scopus as QS conducted additional mapping that aggregates multiple records and may retrieve more data. Additionally, Elsevier frequently adds records to Scopus and backfills for editions during the evaluated periods.
How are average tuition fees calculated?
by Baerbel Eckelmann
Tuition fees is one type of charge a student has to face in higher education. Tuition fees help to pay for the cost of running a higher education institution, such as salaries for teaching staff or maintaining buildings. There are various ways of calculating the average tuition fees, like: calculation of mean by program, calculation of mean by student, calculation of median and calculation of mode. For example:
a university offers 8 programs with yearly fees of:
MA1 3200, MA2 3200 MA3 3200, MBA 11300, MA4 4300, MA5 4800, MA6 3700, MA7 8200
Mean by student
Multiply the fee level by the number of students paying this fee level and then divide by the total number of students.
Mean by program (do remove extreme outliers)
Add up all yearly fees for each program offered and divide the sum by the number of programs. Should you offer particular programs with an exceptionally high fee, please exclude them from your calculation. This mainly applies to certain medical, law or business programs.
Referring to the example this means: 3200+3200+3200+4300+4800+3700+8200 = 30600
30600 /7 = 4371
The mean by program is: 4371
Median
The median indicates the centre of the distribution and is preferable in a distribution with outliers. Following the example above it would mean:
Distribution: 3200 to 11300
All values in order: 3200+3200+3200+3700+4300+4800+8200+11300
3700+4300=8000/2=4000
The median is: 4000
Mode
The mode is the value that appears the most. In our example this would be: 3200
3200 3200 3200 3700 4300 4800 8200 11300
Off-shore campuses and student counts
by Baerbel Eckelmann
Off-shore campuses can be included in the university’s student count as long as the university does NOT qualify domestic students (place where campus is) as international students …
Example: University X in Australia has an off-shore campus in South Africa. It would be wrong if the University X includes all South Africans as international students.
How do you validate directly submitted data?
by Baerbel Eckelmann
Once we have received the data from the institution, either via QS Core system or email, we start the validation process. This means that a member of the QS Intelligence Unit is looking at every single figure submitted by the institution for a particular statistic. The first step in this process is to compare the latest submission against historical records, the university’s website, specialised statistical agencies or other government body websites. In case of the latest submission being significantly higher or lower than previous records we investigate further and seek clarification from the university’s primary research contact. Upon receiving these additional submission notes we conclude on either acceptance or rejection of the data. Occasionally we overwrite direct submissions but such action is documented under ‘validation notes’.
Why is our data still pending?
by Baerbel Eckelmann
We encourage universities to directly submit data into our online database called QS Core. Once done, the status comes up as ‘pending’ and is indicated by a little clock. All data has to go through a validation process before the status changes to ‘accepted’, indicated by a green ‘tick’. The validation is done by a member of the QS Intelligence Unit. Essentially, we focus on validating crucial statistics, which contribute to the compilation of the overall rank position, first followed by all remaining submitted data.
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