Table 5.
Focus on extremes of excellence vs averages, appropriate field adjustment, time frame of measurement and credit allocation problems of Shanghai and Times ranking systems
| Focus* | Field adjustment | Time frame of measurement | Credit allocation | |
| Shanghai | ||||
| Alumni, Nobel/Fields | Very extreme excellence | Not all fields represented | Typically very remote | Problematic |
| Faculty, Nobel/Fields | Very extreme excellence | Not all fields represented | Typically remote | Problematic |
| Faculty, highly-cited | Extreme excellence | To some extent | Remote (1981–1999) | Problematic |
| Nature/Science articles | Extreme excellence | Uneven per field | Recent (last 5 years) | Reasonable*** |
| Number of articles | Average excellence | None | Very recent (last year) | Reasonable*** |
| Size | Not applicable** | None | Sources unclear | Straightforward |
| Times | ||||
| Peer opinion | Varies per expert | To some extent | Varies per expert | Varies per expert |
| Recruiter opinion | Not applicable** | None | Varies per recruiter | Varies per recruiter |
| International faculty | Not applicable** | None | Sources unclear | Straightforward |
| International students | Not applicable** | None | Sources unclear | Straightforward |
| Student-faculty ratio | Not applicable** | None | Sources unclear | Straightforward |
| Citations per faculty | Average excellence | None | Recent (last 5 years) | Reasonable*** |
*Whether excellence is appraised based on the extremes or the average of the distribution of performance.
**Indicators pertain to the whole institution, so they are average indicators, but as per Table 4 they are unlikely to be more than low/modest indicators of excellence.
***Decisions need to be made regarding allocation of credit for multi-authored papers, variable credit according to authorship position etc