This study evaluates the position of Allameh Tabatab’i University (ATU) in four international university ranking systems: Shanghai, QS, Times, and ISC. The results show that at the end of 2016 Allameh Tabatab’i University did not have a great position in three of the international university ranking systems—Shanghai, QS, and Times. However, in 2015 and 2016 the ISC ranked Allameh Tabatab’i University in the second level of the top Iranian universities in the humanities.

Alongside research and educational indicators, national ranking systems evaluate the performance of universities in terms of such indicators as social responsibilities, facilities, entrepreneurship, commercialization of technology, university infrastructure, economic impact, technological developments, and quality of education. These indicators are typically not utilized in global rianking systems because of the difficulties associated with collecting data on a global level. The Iranian National University Ranking System, which evaluates the performance of Iranian universities, differs from global university ranking systems. These differences may result from its methodology. While it incorporates some criteria and indicators from the global university ranking systems, it has added some new ones to compensate for the shortcomings of the global university ranking systems and, thereby, achieve a more realistic picture of the performance of universities. These innovations necessitate comparing the two approaches in order to understand how they affect the results of the university ranking systems. This research aimed to identify the criteria and indicators leading to the divergence of the results of the Iranian National University Ranking System (as a national university ranking) and several well-known global university ranking systems. The latter included Times Higher Education (THE), Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), and Islamic World Science Citation (ISC WUR). 

The present study was a descriptive scientometric research based on a library method. It examined a sample of top Iranian universities commonly ranked by the Iranian system and each of the aforementioned global systems in 2020. Using semi-partial correlation analysis in SPSS 23, we analyzed the correlations between the universities' total scores reported by the Iranian and global systems through controlling the criteria and indicators (un)common between these systems. 

The findings showed that some criteria and indicators of the Iranian system account for the divergence of its results from those of the THE system. These include education, faculty member hierarchy, employment of graduates, effectiveness of research outputs, scientific publications, international mobility of students and faculty members, university budget, university income, and facilities. In addition, the citation criterion in THE contributes to the difference between the results of the two systems. Besides, it has been found that the criterion of economic impact partially contributes to the divergence of results between the Iranian National Ranking System and the ARWU system. Moreover, graduates' employment is an indicator that contributes to the divergence between the results of the Iranian system of ranking universities and the results of the URAP system. On the other hand, none of the indicators of the Iranian National Ranking System lead to a divergence of its results from those of the ISC WUR system. 

The results showed that some innovative criteria and indicators used in the Iranian National University Ranking System play a role in the divergence of its results and those of the global university ranking systems. This implies that methodological innovations have enriched this national system, enabling it to measure different dimensions of a university's performance. However, there are inconsistencies. Some innovative criteria and indicators led to the convergence of the results or showed no effect on the correlations, while some similar factors unexpectedly contributed to the divergence. The divergence in the ranking results caused by similar criteria and indicators is likely to stem from differences in the calculation method, periods, and data sources. Overall, it appears that the methodology used in the Iranian National University Ranking System leads to variations in the ranking outcomes. However, the differences cannot necessarily be interpreted as conductive to a more realistic evaluation. Consequently, there is a need for further investigations, particularly qualitative ones, to assess the conformity of the results with a gold standard benchmark.

The present study attempts to evaluate the relationship of university ranking based on knowledge management criteria and a webometric scale.Design/methodology/approach:Questionnaires were used in this descriptive, spatially restricted, and applied survey, which were distributed among 355 faculty members of Tehran, Isfahan, Tarbiat Modares, Alzahra, Mazandaran, Gilan, Yazd, Arak, and Razi Universities upon being assessed for correctness and stability. The data collected was then analyzed using SPSS16 software. The following can be mentioned as advantages of the presence of universities and research centers in the web environment: participating in the global academic market and attracting new markets for their research-driven and scientific products and services; holding virtual educational courses with the presence of students from all around the globe, promoting participation in international competitions; attaining better global visibility, fulfilling the traditional university tasks—education and research—using digital facilities, producing more scientific products with a lesser cost, etc. Webometrics is a common method in ranking the presence of universities in the web. In this method, the status of a university is pinpointed in comparison with that of other universities using specific criteria. Webometrics university ranking differed from ranking performed through knowledge management criteria.

The present study attempts to evaluate the relationship of university ranking based on knowledge management criteria and a webometric scale.Design/methodology/approach- Questionnaires were used in this descriptive, spatially restricted, and applied survey, which were distributed among 355 faculty members of Tehran, Isfahan, Tarbiat Modares, Alzahra, Mazandaran, Gilan, Yazd, Arak, and Razi Universities upon being assessed for correctness and stability. The data collected was then analyzed using SPSS16 software.indings: The following can be mentioned as advantages of the presence of universities and research centers in the web environment: participating in the global academic market and attracting new markets for their research-driven and scientific products and services; holding virtual educational courses with the presence of students from all around the globe, promoting participation in international competitions; attaining better global visibility, fulfilling the traditional university tasks—education and research—using digital facilities, producing more scientific products with a lesser cost, etc. Webometrics is a common method in ranking the presence of universities in the web. In this method, the status of a university is pinpointed in comparison with that of other universities using specific criteria. Webometrics university ranking differed from ranking performed through knowledge management criteria.

University rankings are often based on measurable outputs. Research institutes and universities are expected to be evaluated based on their capabilities, inputs, and outputs and it is important to do balanced and comprehensive evaluations. Criticisms towards global ranking systems have led them to reform their methodologies, consider the differences in the mission of universities, normalize data based on subjects, and consider the size and age of universities. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) method is a complementary tool to increase the ranking transparency. This study aimed to evaluate the research efficiency of Iranian universities ranked in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings by using the DEA method and to discover the relationship between universities' performance, their rank, research scores, and their citation score in the Times Higher Education Ranking System. The research population included 47 universities. Three inputs and 15 outputs were used in different models. The Microsoft Excel and DEAP software were used to extract the data, define the scenarios and analyze the data. The results showed the relatively good performance of the universities. There was no relationship between the universities’ efficiency score and their research score in the Times Ranking System, but a significant positive relationship was observed between the efficiency score and the universities’ rank and the citation score in the Times Ranking System (0.719 and 0.613, respectively). It seems that the DEA method can be used as a complementary tool to evaluate the technical performance and allocate funds to universities and research institutes

A comparative study of the university systems of the countries of the Near East has been undertaken in this paper. It has been illustrated that the most competitive systems in terms of World University Rankings are the university systems of Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. This conclusion, at a glance, was made based on the distribution of all the universities of 14 countries of the Near East by the ten World University Rankings. This conclusion was confirmed in a more detailed manner upon entering and calculating three integral indicators of country university competitiveness. They were expressed by multiplying and adding the number of the universities of the countries mentioned in the rankings mentioned above and the average values of the positioning of the universities in these systems. Together with the number of universities distributed among the countries, these three indicators correlated well with each other. The devised methodology of a quantitative assessment of country university competitiveness is proposed for a comparative study of this competitiveness in random groups of countries worldwide.

In recent years, university ranking is one issue that is increasingly being discussed in higher education and scientometrics literature. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce, compare and analyze the nine indicators of university ranking systems and higher education institutions (SHANGHI, QS, THES, HEEACT, Webometrics, Leiden,Newsweek and Regional Ranking of the Islamic world(ISC). To compare these ranking systems, their results in various years as well as the existing literature have been studied. that the result is that the criteria used in ranking systems of QS, THES, Webometrics are student-centered while the rankings of Shanghai, Leiden and HEEACT are more based on research. There is much similarity between the rankings Compared with the limited scope of the global surface area is greater similarity between the data.

The present study intended to examine ISC World University Ranking (ISC WUR) as an emerging ranking system. It draws on a descriptive-correlational method. First, the internal correlation held between the criteria of the ISC WUR was examined to clarify the representation of the total university score from each of its functional criteria in the ISC WUR system. Afterwards, the study assessed the extent to which the ISC WUR results diverge or converge at the general level and examined the similarities and differences between ISC WUR criteria and indicators results and those of Leiden, Nature Index, THE, and QS as complicated university rankings. The research sample included the universities ranked via the five global ranking systems in 2020. All ISC WUR’s indicators revealed significant and positive correlations with the total ranking scores of the universities. There was a significantly positive correlation between the ISC WUR and those of Leiden, Nature Index, THE, and QS.Moreover, the indicators similarly present in ISC WUR and other ranking systems were significantly and positively correlated. In conclusion, the overall performance of each university in ISC WUR reflects all the functional criteria of that university, especially the criteria of research and international activities. Besides, although the ICS WUR and the other systems have differences and similarities in methodology, the results obtained from these systems are similar to a certain extent. Nevertheless, these similarities are not strong enough to claim that the ISC WUR presents the same results as other ranking systems.

The purpose of the study is to recognize the common atmosphere of university ranking systems and provide an acceptable picture of their indicators. The indicators and their weights were extracted via university ranking systems' official web sites. The relative weights of different ranking systems were also obtained through a survey of experts. The importance of each extracted indicator was calculated by multiplying the indicator weight by related ranking system weight. The indicators categorized into several groups using some researcher-made keywords. The level of effectiveness of each category of indicators estimated based on its indicators' importance share from the total sum of the importance of all indicators. Research indicators, and among them the "output-citation" group, had the most level of effectiveness. Moreover, in this group, the effectiveness of quality-related indicators was three times more than the effectiveness of quantity related ones. The deliberate, purposeful, and clever use of university ranking systems can have many benefits for higher education stakeholders (policymakers, universities, and students). In contrast, attempts to align academic activities with the most influential indicators are likely to lead to neglecting the core missions of universities (especially education) more than before and exacerbating the trend of caricature and unsustainable growth of inefficient outcomes.

The higher education system in all societies, with the growth of human abilities, genius, and intellectual potential, expands the human knowledge frontiers. For this reason, attention and emphasis on increasing the quality of higher education, universities and their products are always mentioned. The aim of this study was to present a model of qualitative development of public universities based on the global university's ranking approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to extract the main components which was conducted with 18 experts in the field of higher education. Participants were selected using the purposeful theoretical sampling method, and also using the Corbin and Strauss database method that 6 categories and 27 concepts were extracted in the open coding stage. In the axial coding stage of paradigm model whereas in the selected coding stage, the theoretical model arising from the research findings were introduced and explained. The findings showed that the categories of flexible management, balanced research, academic freedom, academic independence, material resources, financial resources, competitiveness, capable environment, normal relationships of adaptation and diversity were at the center of the model.  Moreover, based on the findings of the research, three categories of quality assurance of higher education, branding and support of executive managers were selected as causal conditions affecting the qualitative development of universities based on the world university ranking approach. Furthermore, it can be concluded that the criteria of the Ranking World University in Iran should be seriously considered and emphasized the practical use of the extracted categories to achieve the desired conditions of World-University ranking.