Robert J. Morse, Chief Data Strategist U.S. News & World Report

1. The US News New Best Global Universities ranking by subject – main assumptions and analysis of first results Robert J. Morse, Chief Data Strategist U.S. News & World Report A Road to Academic Excellence - Russian Universities in Rankings by Subject Moscow, Russia / April 9. 2015

2. About U.S. News & World Report For 80 years, U.S. News & World Report has been a publisher of news and information that empowers people to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives. The U.S. News team has been ranking higher education institutions in the U.S. for more than 30 years.

3. Other rankings U.S. News has become the authoritative leader and credible source for data, rankings and researchacross many different products and resources.

4. U.S. News: Academic Rankings and Data ProjectsMost recent 12 months in 2014 & 2015 • Best High Schools & Best STEM High Schools: April 2014 • Best Online Programs for Military Veterans: May 2014 • Community Colleges Directory and Search: June 2014 • Best Colleges: September 2014 • Best Colleges for Military Veterans : September 2014 • Best Global Universities- 10/28/2014 • Arab Region Universities Rankings 11/4/2014 • Best Online Programs: January 2015 • Best Graduate Schools: March 2015

5. Record Traffic and Exposure on Education section at www.usnews.com • Best Colleges launch (September 9, 2014) • 1.47 million unique visitors; 13.6 million page views to the Education section • Traffic up 2x over launch in September 2012 • Full Year 2014 • the Education section on USNWR.com had generated over 63 Million unique visitors and 460 Million page views  • Best Global Universities received 7.4 million PVs from over 1 million unique visitors in Q4 2014 • March 2015: 50 million page views + 7 million unique visitors

6. Best Global Universities rankings Best Global Universities rankings Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Inaugural U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings launched on www.usnews.com on October 28, 2014. The Best Global Universities rankings are powered by data from Thomson Reuters InCitesTM research analytics solutions.

7. Best Global Universities rankings – Why is U.S. News doing them?  U.S. News started publishing the Best Colleges rankings more than 30 years ago which spawned national and global rankings. Natural extension for U.S. News to do a global ranking. The Best Global Universities rankings can help put global trends into context * Large number of students exploring options outside their own borders. * Universities are competing globally for best students, faculty and research dollars * Give prospective students the tools to accurately compare universities globally, regionally and within their own country, as well as by field of study.

8. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Weights and ranking factors were developed by U.S. News Methodology focused on institution’s research performance using 10 factors: global and regional reputation, bibliometric indicators and school level data

9. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ The first step in producing these rankings involved creating​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​a pool of 750 universities that was used to rank the top 500 schools. To be included in the 750 Institution had to first be among the top 200 universities in the results of Thomson Reuters' global reputation survey. Next, an institution had to be among those that had published the most total number of ​articles during the 2008-2012 recent five years using Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science , de-duplicated with the top 200 from the reputation survey. This meant that any stand-alone graduate schools, including the Rockefeller Institute of New York and University of California—San Francisco, were eligible to be ranked and were included in the ranking universe.

10. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Best Global Universities rankings include: Top 500 Universities worldwide in 49 countries Four regional rankings - Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Europe and Latin America  11 country rankings – of the top institutions in:  Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom Top 100 universities in 21 subjects in such key fields as chemistry, clinical medicine, computer science, economics and business, engineering, environment/ecology, mathematics and physics. 

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13. Best Global Universities rankings The 10 ranking factors and weights used in overall Best Global Universities rankings.

14. Best Global Universities rankings Best Global Universities Best Global Universities -The Top 20

15. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Top 11 countries account for 77 percent of the Top 500

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17. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects The Thomson Reuter’s Essential Science Indicators schema is the organization structure that is used for the Best Global Universities Subject Rankings. Essential Science Indicators comprises 22 subject areas in science and social sciences and is based on journal assignments. Essential Science Indicators uses the Web of Science’s 12,000 journals.

18. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects Arts & Humanities journals are not included in the Essential Science Indicators Each journal is found in only one of the 22 subject areas and there is no overlap between categories which can facilitate a simpler analysis. U.S News did not rank one of the 22 Essential Science Indicator subject fields: Multidisciplinary

19. Best Global Universities rankings The 21 subjects in the Best Global Universities Subject rankings Agricultural Sciences Biology & Biochemistry Chemistry Clinical Medicine Computer Science Environment/Ecology Economics & Business Engineering Geosciences Immunology Material Sciences Mathematics Microbiology Molecular Biology & Genetics Neuroscience & Behavior Pharmacology & Toxicology Physics Plant & Animal Science Psychology/Psychiatry Social Sciences and Public Health Space Science

20. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects The next step in producing the Best Global Universities Subject rankings was to create the universe of universities to determine the top 100 in each of the 21 subject fields. The top 250 universities that had published the most papers in that subject area in the 2008-2012 time period were included in the ranking universe for each subject area.

21. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects As a result, there were many cases when an institution that had a strong focus on a certain subject was ranked in the top 100 in a subject ranking but was excluded from the overall Best Global Universities rankings encompassing the top 500 universities worldwide. In total, there were 59 universities and one country, Romania, that were in the subject rankings but not the overall top 500 rankings.

22. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects U.S. News tailored the subject ranking methodology to the different publication characteristics of the soft sciences and mathematics compared with the hard sciences. The soft sciences are computer science; economics and business; engineering; and social sciences and public health in addition to math; all others are hard sciences. School-level data on number of Ph.D.s awarded and number of faculty were not available at the subject level and therefore not included in the subject rankings methodology.

23. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects The use of citation analysis within the hard sciences is well established. However, in the soft sciences the relationship between citations and performance is less clear. There are a number of reasons for this. First, unlike the hard sciences, journal articles are often not the main method of communication of research, and citation rates to the articles may be low. Second, in the social sciences and economics and business, when a scholar cites another work, it is frequently a point of debate or discussion. This is in contrast to the hard sciences, where the reason for citing another work is usually one of utility or influence.

24. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to rank the 21 Subjects: The soft sciences are computer science; economics and business; engineering; and social sciences and public health in addition to math; all others are hard sciences.

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26. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects To arrive at a school's rank in each of the 21 subjects, the subject ​scores were calculated using a combination of the weights and z-scores for each of the eight indicators used in each subject ranking. 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.

27. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects Several of the indicators were highly skewed, so the logs of the original values were used. These indicators that were logged were: Publications Total citations Number of publications that are among the 10 percent most cited Global research reputation Regional research reputation This log manipulation rescaled the data and allowed for a more normalized and uniform spread across each of the indicators.

28. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects In order to calculate a school's subject score, the calculated z-scores for each of the eight indicators were weighted using the weights described earlier. U.S. News determined the weights based on our judgment of the relative importance of the ranking factors and in consultation with bibliometric experts. The subject score was calculated by summing the school's weighted values for the eight indicators in that subject. The minimum score from the pool of 250 schools was then subtracted from each of the scores in order to make zero the lowest possible score.

29. Best Global Universities rankings Methodology used to determine and rank the 21 Subjects The scores were then rescaled by multiplying the ratio between the overall performance of each university in that subject and the highest-performing university by 100. This forced the scores to fall on a 0-100 scale, with the highest-performing school earning a subject score of 100. The 250 schools in each of the 21 subject areas were then numerically ranked in descending order from 1 to 250 based ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​on their weighted subject score. Each school's subject score was rounded to one decimal place in order to increase variance between scores and to minimize the occurrence of ties. U.S. News published the top 100 ranked schools in each subject.

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31. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Top Countries in 21 Subject Rankings

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33. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Top Universities by Subject

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41. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Plans that are being considered for the next U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings to be published in 2015 Expand the number of universities that are being ranked overall and in each subject area. Adding more granular subjects that are currently parts of the 21 broader subject areas

42. Best Global Universities rankings FAQ Thoughts to consider about improving or becoming ranked in the U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings International collaboration on papers Publish in the peer reviewed journals that are included/indexed in the Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science so number of publications reaches threshold number to part of ranking universe Become more visible globally