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The rankings – which are based on bibilometric data and research metrics provided by Scopus, part of the Elsevier Research Intelligence portfolio – focus specifically on institutions' academic research output and performance and not their separate undergraduate or graduate programs
The first step in producing the overall rankings was to determine which of the 800-plus Arab region universities would be eligible to be included in the analysis. U.S. News worked with bibliometric experts at Elsevier to set the analytical time period for the rankings: papers published in the five-year period from 2009 through 2013. This time period was chosen since many Arab region universities have only recently begun emphasizing the importance of their faculty publishing in journals and engaging in research.
The second step was to calculate the rankings for the 91 universities using the nine ranking indicators and weights that U.S. News chose to measure research output and performance; all indicators were based on the 2009-2013 period. The weights emphasize, in nearly equal proportions, the importance of getting published in peer-reviewed journals; getting those publications cited by other researchers in their work; and having a paper be highly cited in its field.
Publications (30 percent): This is a measure of the overall research productivity of a university, based on the total number of publications that have at least one author affiliated with that institution. A publication that is co-authored by authors from different institutions thus counts as a full publication (+1) toward the publication output of each university. This indicator is closely linked to the size of the university. It is also influenced by the discipline focus of the university, as some disciplines, particularly engineering, publish more than others.
Cited publications (5 percent): This indicator represents the total number of publications for that school that have been cited at least once. It shows the extent to which other researchers in the scientific community utilize the research output produced by an entity. It is dependent on the size of the university.
Percent of publications cited (5 percent): This indicator provides a breakdown of what percentage of an institution's total publications in a given year and subject area have thus far been cited at least once. It shows the extent to which other researchers in the scientific community utilize the research output produced by an entity.
Citations (20 percent): This indicator represents the total number of citations to earlier publications made in another new journal article or other publication since the original articles were published. The total number of times research by a university is cited is a measure of how impactful and influential the research has been. The act of one scholar citing another is recognition that the scholar was influenced by the earlier work or utilized it.
Field-weighted citation impact (10 percent): This indicator is a metric that is used as a proxy to measure the quality of a paper. It compares the actual number of citations received by a publication with the expected number of citations for publications of the same document type (article, review or conference proceeding paper), publication year and subject. This enables the comparison of citation impact across subject areas with different publication velocities or publication type norms. It is one of the most sophisticated indicators in the modern bibliometric toolkit.
Ranking indicator |
Weight |
|---|---|
Publications |
30% |
Cited publications |
5% |
Percent of publications cited |
5% |
Citations |
20% |
Field-weighted citation impact |
10% |
Number of highly cited publications in top 10 percent |
5% |
Percentage of total publications in top 10 percent |
5% |
Number of highly cited publications in top 25 percent |
10% |
Percentage of total publications in top 25 percent |
10% |
Number of highly cited publications in top 10 percent (5 percent): This indicator reflects the number of papers that have been assigned as being in the top 10 percent of the most highly cited papers in the world in their respective fields. Each paper is given a percentile score that represents where it falls, in terms of citation rank, compared with similar papers (same publication year, subject and document type).
Percentage of total publications in top 10 percent (5 percent): This indicator is the percentage of a university's total papers that are in the top 10 percent of the most highly cited papers in the world (per field and publication year). It is a measure of the amount of excellent research produced by the university and is independent of the university's size.
Number of highly cited publications in top 25 percent (10 percent): This indicator reflects the number of papers that have been assigned as being in the top 25 percent of the most highly cited papers in the world in their respective fields. Each paper is given a percentile score that represents where it falls, in terms of citation rank, compared with similar papers (same publication year, subject and document type). As the number of papers is dependent on the size of the university, it can be considered a robust indication of how much excellent research the university produces.
Percentage of total publications in top 25 percent (10 percent): This indicator is the percentage of a university's total papers that are in the top 25 percent of the most highly cited papers in the world (per field and publication year). It is a measure of the amount of excellent research produced by the university and is independent of the university's size.
To arrive at a school's rank, the overall scores were calculated using a combination of the weights and z-scores for each of the nine indicators used in the rankings. In statistics, a z-score is a standardized score that indicates how many standard deviations a data point is from the mean of that variable. This transformation of the data is essential when combining diverse information into a single ranking because it allows for fair comparisons between the different types of data.
Several of the indicators were highly skewed, so the logs of the original values were used. These indicators were:
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