Ampirik Araflt›rma / Original Empirical Research www.yuksekogretim.org Ranking Chemical Engineering Departments in Turkey Based on Academic Performance Türkiye’deki kimya mühendisli¤i bölümlerinin akademik performanslar›na göre s›ralanmas› Baflar Uyar Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey Özet Abstract Bu çal›flma, Türkiye’deki kimya mühendisli¤i bölümlerini son befl y›ldaki This study ranks the chemical engineering departments in Turkey based on akademik üretkenliklerine göre s›ralamak amac›yla gerçeklefltirilmifltir. Lite- their academic performances during the past five years. This is the first and ratürde Türkiye'nin üniversitelerini bölüm düzeyinde de¤erlendirerek s›ra- only study that assesses and ranks the universities of Turkey at departmental layan ilk ve tek çal›flma olma özelli¤ini tafl›maktad›r. Akademik üretkenli¤in level. Published international articles, completed TÜB‹TAK research proj- hesaplanmas› için yay›nlanm›fl uluslararas› makaleler, tamamlanm›fl TÜB‹- ects and graduate theses were used to calculate the academic performances. TAK destekli araflt›rma projeleri ve lisansüstü tezler kullan›lm›flt›r. Bölüm- The departments are ranked based on both the total number of activities and ler hem toplam etkinlik say›lar›na, hem de kifli bafl›na düflen etkinlik say›la- the number of activities per academician; the ranking of total activities has r›na göre s›ralanm›flt›r; toplam etkinli¤e göre yap›lan s›ralaman›n toplumun been found to be a better reflection of public and scientific community per- ve bilimsel çevrenin alg›lar›n› daha iyi yans›tt›¤› görülmüfltür. De¤erlendir- ception. The results show that the highest ranked chemical engineering meler Türkiye’deki en iyi kimya mühendisli¤i bölümünün ‹stanbul Üniver- department in Turkey is in Istanbul University, and the top ten departments sitesi bünyesindeki bölüm oldu¤unu iflaret etmektedir, ilk on bölüm üç bü- are located in the leading three cities (Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir). Only the yük flehirdeki (‹stanbul, Ankara, ‹zmir) üniversitelerdedir. Sadece ilk üç s›ra- top three departments in Turkey had comparable publication outputs com- da yer alan bölümlerin makale üretimleri yurtd›fl›ndaki benzer bölümlerin pared to their international counterparts. The number of departments and düzeyine ulaflabilmektedir. Akademik olarak aktif olmayan akademisyen ve academicians which are virtually unproductive in terms of academic output bölüm say›s› dikkat çekici düzeydedir; akademisyenlerin beflte biri son befl is also significant; one fifth of the academics did not publish any article in a y›lda WoS veritaban›nda dizinlenen dergilerde makale yay›nlamam›flt›r, dört journal that is indexed in the WoS database within the last five years, no bölümde hiç lisansüstü tez yap›lmad›¤› görülmektedir, sekiz bölümün hiç ta- graduate theses were produced in four departments, and eight departments mamlanm›fl projesi bulunmamaktad›r. Dikkat çekici bir baflka bulgu da y›l- did not have any completed projects. Even though more departments and dan y›la bölüm ve akademisyen say›s›n›n artmas›na ra¤men toplam akademik academicians are added to the academic pool every year, total academic out- ç›kt› say›s›n›n artmamas›d›r. put does not increase in parallel. Anahtar sözcükler: Akademik performans, araflt›rma de¤erlendirmesi, Keywords: Academic performance, bibliometrics, chemical engineering, bibliyometri, kimya mühendisli¤i, s›ralama. ranking, research evaluation. sity rankings, majority of the Turkish universities are classi- n contrast to other G20 countries, Turkey has focused fied as virtually ‘research-inactive’, a situation which requires on expanding the number and size of its universities in attention (British Council, 2015). I recent years (British Council, 2015): The number of universities increased from 71 to 179, total number of stu- University rankings that have been initially originated in dents increased from 1.6 million to more than 6 million the United States attracting considerable interest of coun- between 2011 and 2016 (YÖK, 2016). While there are few tries. Ranking a university gives an overall picture of its qual- number of universities performing well in the global univer- ity. However, many universities are quite heterogeneous, thus, Yüksekö¤retim Dergisi 2018;8(2):125–132. © 2018 Deomed ‹letiflim / Correspondence: Gelifl tarihi / Received: Mart / March 1, 2017; Kabul tarihi / Accepted: A¤ustos / August 5, 2017 Assoc. Prof. Dr. Baflar Uyar Bu makalenin at›f künyesi / Please cite this article as: Uyar, B. (2018). Ranking chemical Department of Chemical Engineering, engineering departments in Turkey based on academic performance. Yüksekö¤retim Dergisi, 8(2), Faculty of Engineering, Kocaeli 125–132. doi:10.2399/yod.17.019 University, Kocaeli, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] Çevrimiçi eriflim / Online available at: www.yuksekogretim.org • doi:10.2399/yod.17.019 • Karekod / QR code: Baflar Uyar ranking of individual departments is a worthwhile attempt, and ences along with life sciences. Its applications are not only such efforts are quite rare (Lazaridis, 2010). limited to the design, development and operation of industri- Evaluations of academic departments through rankings al processes, but also involve many biomedical advancements have importance in decision making by government officials, regarding faster disease diagnosis, more efficient drug-deliv- university administrators, and department chairpersons. The ery mechanisms and improved biomaterials (Kazakis, 2015). first attempts to rate departments goes back to 1964, when sur- In this concept, this study aims to rank the chemical engi- vey questionnaire sent to experts were used to yield a rank neering departments in Turkey based on their academic per- ordering of departments for each discipline in the USA. The formances between 2011 and 2015. Three different metrics ratings were updated with another survey in 1970. were used for this purpose; scientific articles published, research Administrators in federal agencies have used these ratings when projects completed, and graduate theses granted. The study cov- evaluating departments and they rapidly became a standard ers the last five calendar years (2011–2015). The obtained rank- benchmark within the academic community. Simultaneously, ings were also compared with the minimum national university numerous voices have been raised in criticism of these survey- entrance exam score required to enroll to these departments based ratings and the methods used to generate them. The pri- (Student Selection and Placement System, ÖSYS), which is an mary complaint was that the methods were basically subjective indicator of quality as perceived by the public. Finally, the (Drew & Karpf, 1981) and vulnerable to measurement errors. departmental rankings were compared to the university rank- However, most of the competing survey-based academic rank- ings published by University Ranking by Academic ings ask highly consistent questions of those being surveyed, Performance (URAP) Research Laboratory of Middle East and make the questions sufficiently general in scope that the Technical University in Ankara, Turkey in order to assess the respondent can provide a meaningful answer. Also, they performances of the departments relative to their institutions. employ similar response and scoring systems, permitting facile This is the first and the only study in literature that side-by-side comparisons. All-in-all, these surveys pleasantly attempts to assess and rank the Turkish universities at depart- surprise in terms of the quality of their information. On the mental level. Even though it is limited to chemical engineer- other hand, rankings of programs based on publication per- ing departments, the results provide interesting outcomes formance in peer-reviewed journals are appealing because aca- which may provide insight on academic performances of demic journals remain, despite imperfections, the fairest meas- engineering faculties and Turkish universities. ure of the quality of research (Dusansky & Vernon, 1998). The h-index or g-index is usually used as indicators of Methods publication performance, because they account not only for The list of the chemical engineering departments was an aspect of quantity (the pure number of published articles) obtained from the Council of Higher Education of Turkey but also for an aspect of quality and scientific impact (the (CoHE) (YÖK, 2016). The academic staff rosters were number of citations the articles received). The technical lim- retrieved from the official websites of the departments on itations of h and g indices have been the focus of a substantial June 15th, 2016. Only full-time academicians with ranks of literature; they operate with a limited informational basis that assistant professor, associate professor and professor were only includes the number of published papers and the num- included (lecturers, research assistants, technicians etc. are ber of citations they received. As a measure of research excluded from the study). A total of 34 chemical engineering impact, these indices therefore only focus on a specific departments hosting a total of 485 academicians were studied. dimension of knowledge production and dissemination, while The search was limited to between 2011 and 2015. consciously disregarding other legitimate dimensions of Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WoS) database was research, for example patents, participation in research proj- used to obtain the number of published full scientific (research