Turning the tide of university rankings through culturally responsive research

1. Turning the tide of university rankings through culturally responsive research Chuing Prudence Chou (周祝瑛) National Chengchi University (NCCU),Taiwan CRICE, University of Malaya, May 13, 2016

2. Overview: A Local or Global Phenomenon in Academia? • Taiwan • Country Profile • Historical Context • Significance • Trends • Globalization • Neo-liberalism • World-class University Rakings • National Competitiveness • Policy reform • Academic drift’ • The SSCI Syndrome’ • The Unexpected Consequences • Challenges Today

3. Taiwan: Country Profile • Population: 23.3 million(2013) • GDP, per capita: $20,930 (#40) (2013) • Literacy rate: 98.04% (2010) • Urbanization: 70% (2010) • Demographics: • 98% Han Chinese • 2% Indigenous

4. Taiwan: Historical Context -1895 1895-1945 1949-1987 1987- • Qing Dynasty Era • Education primarily for elite • Japanese Colonial Era • Development of modern education system • Japanese language in schools • Republic of China, Martial Law Era • Emphasis on “Chinese” aspects of Taiwanese history and culture • Republic of China, Democratic Era • Education increasingly “Taiwanese” • Still primarily centralized

5. Zheng Chenggong (鄭成功) landing in Taiwan in 1662

6. Taipei, 1960s Source: taipics.com

7. Taipei, early 1980s Source: taipics.com

8. Taipei, 2010s

9. Taipei MRT, 2010s

10. Blue Tearsin Matsu , Taiwan : This Stunning Scene Seems Too Beautiful to Be Real

11. Why Taiwan’s higher education matters? • Globally • The second highest higher education admission rate (70%) in the world • Model of economic success • Example of impacts of neoliberalism and marketization on HE • Locally • Rapid university expansion and upcoming closures • Cost-efficient university model • Increasing cross-strait exchanges between China andTaiwan

12. What tide has impacted Taiwan’s academia? • Neoliberal turn since 1990s. • Expansion of higher education systems. • Drive for ‘global excellence.’ • Desire to boost national competitiveness.

13. Macro-effects – Policy reform • Expansion (“massification”) of Higher Education systems. • Private sector expansion plays significant role. • Public funding suffers relative decline • Greater requirement for transparency and accountability in funding allocation. • Increased emphasis on world-class university rankings (ARWU, QS, The Times Higher Education, etc.)

14. Micro-effects – ‘Academic drift’ • University Human Resource(HR) policies amended to enhance research output. • Rely on quantitative metrics, rewarding high outputs. (esp. journal publication) • Hiring, probation, promotion and rewards all depend on journal publication and journal ‘impact factors.’ • Academic career structure has geared toward research publication record. • Academics increasingly select mainstream research topics to increase acceptance rate rather than social relevancy • Other areas such as book publication and teaching are neglected.

15. Micro-effects – academic drift (cont.) • Effects are not consistent across academic disciplines. • Staff with quantitative backgrounds publish more than qualitative. • Interdisciplinary subjects experience greater hardship placing articles. • Humanities/Social Sciences research forced away from ‘local’ norms and topics more than physical sciences/engineering. • Faculty with excellent teaching performance cannot succeed in academic promotion without research output – ‘publish or perish’.

16. Micro-effects – academic drift (cont.) • Institutions experience greater disparity in resources between elite and non-elite universities. • Non-elite (esp. private) universities whose students mostly from lower SES rely more heavily on tuition fee incomes.

17. Origin of the SSCI Syndrome • University expansion of Taiwan’s higher education system since 1990s • the maintenance of quality has become a key concern. • In 2005, the Ministry of Education initiated Program for Promoting Academic Excellence in Universities with an aim for the Top University and Elite Research Center Development Plan. • Establish a formal university evaluation policy for public funding allocation to improve univ. competitiveness and international visibility of Taiwan’s top universities.

18. The SSCI Syndrome • University evaluation depended on Research performance in terms of number of articles published in SCI, SSCI, EI and A&HCI indexed journals, as well as citation rates and associated impact factors. • Evaluation has taken on a highly quantitative dimension since 2005.

19. The unexpected consequences:Apple VS. Banana

20. Unexpected Result… • Local relevance of research called into question. • ‘Public intellectual’ role diminishing. • Themes selected are ‘global’ for publication reasons. • ‘Global audience’ is, in effect, journal editors – ‘gatekeeper effect.’ • Publication in English less accessible for local audiences. • English language writing ability now acts as proxy measure for academic merit in non-English-speaking academic communities.

21. Gender Equity under the ‘SSCI Syndrome’ in Taiwan • The new system of rewards based on journal publication has crippled the status of female faculty in Taiwan since 2005. • Junior female faculty in social sciences and humanity encounter even more barriers in promotion and publication. • More gender disparity among ‘elite’ universities.

22. New Gender Discrepancy – Academic positions • 162 colleges and universities in Taiwan, only 14 headed by female presidents (2016) • Percentage of female faculty at universities or colleges only slowly increasing (2007, 34.14%; 2014, 35.21%)

23. Winners take all effect • Women concentrated in lower ranks. • Promotion prospects limited by: • Social expectations on wives/mothers. • Limited opportunity to network internationally as a result. • “One of my colleagues considered refusing a promotion because she felt her husband would be angry with her for being away from the home too much.”

24. Local responses: Online petition for collective action, November 2010 • Questioning truly ‘global’ nature of indicators. • Petition government for re-evaluation of performance criteria. • More than 2000 academics in Taiwan endorsed the petition calling on government to: • establish alternative approaches to academic evaluation • find ways to properly tap into faculty academic productive capacity according to discipline and specialty. • https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/1792-the-ssci-syndrome-in-higher-education.pdf and http://chiuphysics.cgu.edu.tw/yun-ju/cguweb/NCCUEdu2010/HomeCosigntory.htm • Major changes have been made to funding policies and evaluation guidelines.

25. Conclusion • Global trend towards quantitative bibliometric indicators in faculty evaluations. • ‘SSCI Syndrome’ has changed the nature of academic governance. • Social sciences and humanities especially hard-hit.

26. Thank you.Questions and Comments: Chuing Prudence Chou (周祝瑛) National Chengchi University iaezcpc@gmail.com Website: www3.nccu.edu.tw/~iaezcpc/en/

27. Chou’s Work… Chou, C. P.; Spangler, J. (eds.). (2016). Chinese Education Models in a Global Age. Singapore: Springer. Chou, C. P. (Ed) (2014). The SSCI Syndrome in Higher Education: A Local or Global Phenomenon. Netherland: Sense Publishers. Chou, C. P.; Ching, Gregory S. (2012). Taiwan Education at the Crossroad: When Globalization Meets Localization. International and Development Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 周祝瑛(2008)。台灣教育怎麼辦？臺北：心理。 周祝瑛(2003)。誰捉弄了台灣改？臺北：心理。