I wonder if anyone has noticed an interesting feature of the latest
Sunday Times league table. By its approach of using the difference
between performance and benchmark to calculate the bonus score for
dropout, the Sunday Times places different limits on the maximum
positive score for different institutions. For example with a
benchmark figure of 6 for the Funding Councils' statistic the
University of Cambridge's maximum score (i.e. with nil drop-out rate)
in this section of the league table is only 60. By contrast, with a
benchmark figure of 25% the University of North London could
theoretically score up to 250. In practice the effect is not as
great with only one institution (St Andrews) scoring 100. However
the approach taken means that the maximum possible score in the
league table is not the same for each institution, thereby rendering
the table even more meaningless.
Bruce Nelson
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D B Nelson Director of Planning
mail: [log in to unmask] University of Edinburgh
voice: +131-650 2131 Old College, South Bridge
fax: +131-650 9127 Edinburgh,
http://www.msp.ed.ac.uk/ EH8 9YL, Scotland
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