Dear Elin and All,

For a documentary study on design curriculum issues, there are several aspects. I agree with Karel van der Waarde, and with Dan Lockton. If the focus of the documentary is curriculum at leading design schools, it’s vital to understand both what you mean by “top,” and to know what it is that you intend to study with respect to curriculum.

While I recognize that there are many views on rankings, I’m going to draw attention to a specific flaw in the QS system. Not only is QS based primarily on reputation, but the QS rankings are easily gamed. Many universities are aware of the ways to inflate the QS ranking by asking friends, alumni, and former students to register a reputation “vote” on their behalf. This can be especially useful when people “vote” only for the one school, since that school has therefore an outsize number of votes proportional to people who may vote for several schools.

But this is not the only problem. QS owns a consulting service that encourages schools to join the paid “QS Stars” system. While the QS people do not put it this way, this is essentially a way to hire QS to show a school how to do better within the QS system. QS is far from impartial. QS customers compete within the QS ranking system with schools that are not willing to participate in QS Stars.

Not long ago, I was sitting in the office of the dean at a design school I would describe as a leading design school. This school is located within one of the world’s top 500 research universities. We were discussing the QS system, and the dean had asked that a senior administrator from his university come by to discuss the different ranking systems. This administrator told us that someone from QS had just been to visit the president of the university to suggest that the university pay to join QS Stars. The president declined. While he politely thanked the QS representative for the visit, the administrator told us that he was more blunt with his comments after the person left his office. As the administrator reported the president’s conversations, the president said that the QS Stars system amounted to bribery. His university places the greatest weight on the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). This is not because it is ideal, but because it is transparent, open, and there is no way to “game” the ARWU rankings.

This is unfortunate for design because ARWU standards do not account for many of the issues that are important in design — but it is better than a system that is meaningless or buyable.

There is also the problem of people “voting” for universities based on their liking for the university, regardless of their knowledge of what the university offers. While we were talking, for example, one person at the meeting noted that QS gave a high rank in architecture to a university that does not offer architecture at all. 

A few weeks later, I met the head of a design school that had won a place in QS list for the top 50 of the design field and one of the top 500 universities overall — according to QS. He started laughing. He was at that time leaving this university because the design school was poor in quality and the university itself was beset by problems. In his view, this was not a top 50 design school — and no other ranking whatsoever ranks the university at that level. What seems to make the difference is membership in QS Stars.

One can dispute the criteria of the other rankings. In my view, for example, ARWU puts too much emphasis on the legacy effect of Nobel Prize awards and Fields medals. I’d say ARWU ought to allow for the AHCI — Arts and Humanities Citations Index — but it does not. Nevertheless, ARWU is serious and so transparent than people who take the time to calculate such things can track the rise or fall of universities using exactly the same criteria. For some university presidents and vice chancellors, therefore, ARWU is the gold standard.

Other ranks such as The Times Higher Education ranking, US News and World Report, the EU Multiranking index and others are more open to change and arguments, but all are serious. Universities cannot game them, universities cannot buy their way in, and they serve as serious though debatable ranking schemes rather than marketing schemes.

If we’re going to debate these kinds of issues, it is reasonable to be aware of the criteria involved and the different systems. Simply to suggest that one give credence to any ranking scheme whatsoever for a measure of top design schools is a problem. Otherwise, we can give top rankings in astrophysics to a college that offers a popular course in creation myths.    

These issues are worth debating — but one must do so based on understanding the issues. In general, I agree with Karel and Don.    
 
Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia 

Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 

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Dan Lockton wrote:

—snip—

following Karel's points, I think honestly it is meaningless to try to understand 'best' without also understanding the criteria used to produce the lists, whose opinions are included, and so on. That could itself be a very interesting thing to study.

—snip—

Karel van der Waarde wrote:

—snip—

Please provide criteria (lists based on what?), references (which lists?), and links (where to find them easily?) to make sure that we are looking at the same lists.

Without a detailed description of the following items, it’s impossible to answer your question:

- which design specialisms do you need to know about? [engineering? fashion? automotive-design? …?]
- at which level (non-graduate, BA, MA, PhD)?
- what is the origin of the institute? science based - crafts based - arts based?
- where does the money come from: funding sources and fee levels? [this affects the student/staff ratio, facilities, …]
- which period? In 2016? Between 2010 and 2016? Earlier?
- selection procedures? [Where do they get the students from? Where do they get the staff from? How do they select?]
- which criteria do you want to look at to ‘choose the best’? [number of students graduating, number of graduates finding jobs, salaries of graduates after x years, number of awards after x years, satisfaction of students during studies, satisfaction of students after studies, number of publications/exhibitions/conference presentations of staff, number of design awards that staff have received, opinions of employers, number of photographs in magazines, number of likes on facebook/linkedin, …]

I’m not sure I trust any list claiming to show an accurate ranking of ‘design schools’. There are simply too many variables to rank and determine a single list.

—snip— 


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