Maclean's using access laws to pry data from universities

[daleo]

Maclean's magazine is using provincial freedom of information laws to try to force some schools to participate in its annual survey, which assigns rankings to 47 Canadian universities.

The presidents of 11 universities sent a letter to Maclean's in August saying they would not take part in this year's survey because of concerns about the methodology and validity of some of the measures.
...
The magazine said it believes universities in other provinces are legally required to make the information public.

"As public institutions, universities have the responsibility to make this information publicly available," said Tony Keller, Maclean's managing editor of special projects.


http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/18/macleans-survey.html

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I guess this means Maclean's will be offering their university issue at no charge, in interests of full public disclosure.

[Spazito]

1. Macleans has turned into a right wing shill news magazine, imo

I participated in a polling panel during and after the last election, answering their poll questions and the slant was unbelievable! It was fascinating, in a macabre kind of way, to see how they would slant their questions, position the parties in the question depending on the issue.

[daleo]

2. The Maclean's university issue editor (Keller) was at a meeting recently

Attended by some people I know, on this subject. To put it mildly, he didn't make any friends. I am advised that his tone was belligerent.

He is new - the old university issue editor took another job. I suppose Keller is Kenneth Whyte's appointment (the new Maclean's top editor). Kenneth Whyte seems to have a talent for running magazines into the ground (e.g. Saturday Night).

I can just imagine how slanted the poll you were involved in must have been, given Kenneth Whyte's background (Western Report).

[tuvor]

3. I remember last year some Vancouver station reported that

Maclean's university rankings were dubious for specific reasons. Sorry I can't be more specific; I remember scouring that radio station's website for the original story and coming up empty, but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth over Maclean's.

[daleo]

4. There are a multitude of reasons that the ratings are dubious

Among them:
- data integrity (most items aren't independently audited).
- most items measure inputs rather than process (i.e. they don't really tell how well the universities do in educating students, just who they attract and how they are funded).
- many are reputation or prestige based, with no real basis in social science or public policy.
- socially important measures aren't included.
- they don't relate that well to the things that students actually use to make decisions (e.g. costs, distance and program availability).
- they can distort university priorities.
- they are too global in nature (e.g. rating universities as a whole, rather than individual programs, which would be more relevant for students).

A good article is "Academic quality, league tables, and public policy: A cross-national analysis of university ranking systems" (Higher Education, 2005)