2. Computing methods

(1) About freshmen quality ranking
Freshmen quality is ranked by the entrance scores of national university entrance examination of each university.
Since each province has different scoring methods in the national examination, so we rank first within each province as each province has the same examination and grading standard. The examinees are classified into three categories, i.e. arts/social sciences; science/technology; and others. Arts/social sciences include: philosophy, law, economics, history, education, literature and foreign languages; Science/technology include: science, technology, medical, agriculture, management; the others.
(a) Subjects ranking of each province
The score of 100 is assigned to the school with highest ranking on student average score in each subject. The score of other university are relative scores that are scaled accordingly. We use the following formula,
(Student Average score in each subject / Top Student average score in each subject) * 100
(b) Provincial comprehensive ranking
To set up the average score of each subject and enrolled students total weighed average as standard; the score of 100 is assigned to the highest, the score of other schools are relative scores scaled accordingly.
(c) National subject ranking
Subject score within each province and the enrollment total weighed average.
(d) National comprehensive ranking
Subject score within nation and the national enrollment total weighed average.

(2) About research expenditure
The general principle is to score first according to the separate categories of arts/social science and science/technology. These separate scores are then summed up with the weights equal to the percentage of staff in each category. In each separate score, we consider both expenditure per person and total expenditure. The reasons for this practice are:
(a) The score of 100 is assigned to the school with highest research expenditure per person in the general fields of arts and science in order to balance the expenditure per person in each category.
(b) The score of 100 is assigned to the school with highest research expenditure in arts/social science and science/technology fields in order to balance the expenditure in each category and also to avoid the school with relative high expenditure and with small scale. The total expenditure can tell the research capacity and also reflect the advantage in multi-subjects cooperation.
(c) The respective weights of the expenditure per person and total expenditure in each category are 50%. This approach is adapted from the commonplace practice in assessing library capacity where a similar set of weights is used with library capacity per person and total library capacity.
(d) As the percentage of faculty in each general category of subjects differs from school to school, and as the research expenditure in these categories differ dramatically, our practice of weighting and adjusting with the percentage of faculty offers a more objective summary statistics of the research expenditure for a concerned university.
The detailed steps in our calculation are listed as follows:
a) Compute the expenditure per person in each school with expenditure data in arts/social sciences;
b) Rank according to the score of expenditure per person;
c) The score of 100 is assigned to the highest ranking school. The other schools are assigned with the relative scores that are scaled with the highest score;
d) Rank the total research expenditure in arts/social sciences;
e) The score of 100 is assigned to the highest ranking school. The other schools are assigned with the relative scores that are scaled with the highest score;
f) The per person score in item 3 times 50%; add the total expenditure score in item 5 times 50%; to arrive at the final score in research expenditure ( if the highest score is not 100 then we scale up the highest score to 100, and other scores are scaled up accordingly);
g) The same methods were used in scoring with schools in the general category of science/technology;
h) Compute the total number of research staff in science/technology;.
i) The score of expenditure in arts/social sciences times the relevant staff percentage is added to the score in science/technology times the concerned staff percentage to arrive at the total research expenditure of the school;
j) Rank the general score of each school and assign 100 score to the highest rank, the rest are the percentage of the highest rank;.

(3) About computation of library resource in “facilities and resources”
The library resource is calculated as the sum of library books per student and the total number of books in the library books with 50% weights. It is very important for student to have more choices on books, and the total number of books in the library is of importance..

(4) About computation in “academic achievement”
The score in academic achievement has changed from the method of simple addition. Instead, proper care has now been taken with regards to the general categories of arts/social sciences and science/technology. Also, instead of the aggregate number, we have used the per person number for all pieces of achievement information.
In particular, we have followed the following steps:

Step I. We use two sub-indicators for respectively “Science/Technology” and “Arts/Social Science. Numbers with SCI, EI, ISTP, and CSTP are lumped into the sub-indicator of science/technology; Numbers with SSCI, A &HCI, and China Social Science Index Database are lumped into the sub-indicator of arts/social science.

Step II. Compute score in each sub-indicator:
Score in science/technology = SCI * SCI weight + EI * EI weight + ISTP* ISTP weight + CSTP * CSTP weight
Score in arts/social science = SSCI * SSCI weight + A &HCI * A&HCI weight + Thesis in China Social Science Index Database * Thesis in China Social Science Index Database weight

Step III. Compute score per person in each indicator:
Score per person in science/technology = Score in science/technology / total number of staff in science/technology
Score per person in arts/social science = Score in arts/social science / total number of staff in arts/social science

Step IV. Rank the above score accordingly in each sub-indicator.

Step V. To sum up the ranking in each indicator and come up to the total score in “Academic
Achievements”:
Academic Achievements = (Score in Science/Technology * staff total in Science/Technology / research staff total + Score in Arts/Social Science * staff total in Arts/Social Science / research staff total ) / research staff total.

Step VI. Rank the above score and compute the relative score of each school accordingly to come up with the final score in Academic Achievements.

This solves partially the “apples and oranges” problem in comparing achievement in arts/social science and science/technology so that we can make the ranking more objective..

(5) Student total is the full time students of undergraduates. The non-teachers of university hospital of medical schools are discarded.

(6) About Teacher/student ratio
When a ratio is too high for schools with too few students, we truncate the ratio so that 11 would be the highest ratio.