University program rankings in the United States: Failures in assessing important factors for library and information science students

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the popular rankings (US News and World Report, QS World Rankings) of U.S.-based library and information science (LIS) education programs and the shortcomings of each ranking. It calls for a new, more objective ranking of LIS programs that will more accurately assess quality and sustainability of these programs and provide more relevant information for future students in choosing a program. The uniqueness of the library and information professions is discussed as an impetus for producing more useful rankings and providing open data on student costs and outcomes in LIS programs. Statistics comparing relationships between the major LIS school rankings and factors identified from the literature as important for LIS student college choice are presented. New criteria for the creation of more representative rankings of LIS programs is presented.

Keywords

Library and Information science education U.S. news and world report QS world university rankings higher education comparative analysis marketing

1. Introduction

Rankings of schools of higher education, including library and information science (LIS) programs, play an important role in the public perception of these programs and the number of students who apply for a particular program (Hossler, 2000; Schleef, 2000; Ehrenberg, 2003; Meredith, 2004; Kinzie et al., 2004; Michael, 2005; Griffith & Rask, 2007; Bowman & Bastedo, 2009, 2010; Tuttle, 2017). LIS programs in the United States regularly announce their inclusion in various rankings of top programs (University of Illinois School of Information Science, 2018; University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, 2018), as it has become one of the more ubiquitous marketing points. Many of these rankings, however, lack rigor and/or are limited in scope, providing rankings that are not backed by strong empirical criteria but rather opinions of potentially-biased survey respondents. Virtually all popular rankings for U.S. programs currently in existence rely heavily on subjective measures of success that are assessed by current faculty in a given discipline, raising concerns of conflicts of interest and familiarity biases (Rindova et al., 2005; Hazelkorn, 2015; Espeland & Sauder, 2016).

There is a need for a ranking of U.S. LIS programs that provides a more holistic assessment of not just perceptions of current faculty toward the programs but also the programs’ financial standing, student success and outcomes, and faculty-student ratio. These factors have been shown to correlate with students’ selection of and satisfaction with a program and demonstrates the continued viability of a program better than surveys of opinion (Hoxby, 2015; Wiswall & Zafar, 2015; Hill, 2016; Altonji et al., 2016; McManus et al., 2017). Additionally, students’ and graduates’ perceptions of a school’s quality is an important factor in recruiting new students (Vidaver-Cohen, 2007; Ryan & Frye, 2018; Huntington-Klein, 2018). To develop such a holistic assessment of U.S. LIS programs, it is important to first fully understand the weaknesses of each of the major rankings available today.

The following review will critique all of the major rankings of United States-based LIS programs published today. It will cover both well-known rankings (US News and World Report, QS World Rankings), lesser known rankings (College Choice), and nontraditional “rankings” (American Library Association-accreditation status). The methodology of each ranking will be explored to identify weaknesses of the ranking, as well as any elements of the ranking that work well and might be incorporated into a new ranking system. Following this review is a statistical analysis of relationships between the three most popular rankings (US News, QS World, College Choice) and categories of information identified in LIS literature as important for student college choice. The review and analysis provide a clear message that the field of LIS must rethink how its rankings are created.

This study focuses specifically on the rankings of LIS programs in the United States. While some of the critiques and findings (such as those pertaining to the QS World Ranking) may have greater generalizability, many of the critiques are specific to rankings, themes, and factors that are most meaningful to LIS students and educators in the United States. Rankings, and their importance to prospective students, varies around the world. Since rankings outside of the United States were not studied, researchers, educators, and students in each of these countries will need to investigate their respective rankings with the same level of scrutiny to determine if they are appropriate measures of LIS program quality.

2. An investigation of the major rankings of LIS programs

2.1 US news rankings

Perhaps the most popular ranking of U.S. LIS programs is the US News Best Library and Information Studies Programs (Hazelkorn, 2015; Craig, 2015). This ranking assigns a score to library programs on a scale of 1–5, with scores under 2 being withheld from the public (Morse et al., 2018). For library and information science, the rankings include only 51 programs, and do not include any programs not accredited by the American Library Association. US News states that their 2019 rankings are based “solely on the results of a fall 2016 survey sent to each program’s dean, director, and a senior faculty member” (Morse & Krivian, 2018). The survey asked individuals to rate the academic quality of programs at other institutions on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). This subjective ranking of LIS programs invites bias (Bowman & Bastedo, 2009, 2011). It is highly unlikely that everyone who submits a questionnaire is knowledgeable about every library program for which they submit a questionnaire. Rather, it is probable that reputation and relationships have a greater role in program rankings than a more objective assessment of graduate preparedness or financial stability. Furthermore, US News reports a response rate of only 52 percent for their questionnaire, which while generally quite high for a survey seems insufficient for such a small and potentially biased survey group of library school administrators (Nulty, 2008). Finally, the survey is updated infrequently and captures only perceptions during one short period of time. Library programs are constantly evolving entities with deans, professors, and curriculum (and even curriculum-delivery method) changing every few years. To reduce the impact of library school rankings by any one particular administration or “down year,” rankings should incorporate longitudinal statistics or be updated frequently (Hazelkorn, 2015).

This critique of US News rankings is not unique. Several articles have expressed the lack of rigor in the US News rankings (McGahie & Thompson, 2001; Clarke, 2002). Others have shown only a moderate correlation between the US News rankings and the actual financial and student success of the program (Altbach, 2015). The rankings are vulnerable to biases toward well-known universities and universities with doctoral programs (where the faculty voting in the poll received their degree) (Altbach, 2015).

2.2 QS world rankings

A second popular ranking of U.S. LIS programs (and LIS programs worldwide) is the QS World University Rankings by Subject: Library and Information Management. As suggested in the title, these rankings are global. They are based on four measures: academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations per paper, and H-index score (O’Callaghan, 2017). The academic reputation measure is similar to the US News Rankings. Academics registered with QS select, “up to 10 domestic and 30 international institutions which they consider to be excellent for research in the given area” (O’Callaghan, 2017). Employer reputation measure uses the same methodology as academic reputation, only surveying employers instead of academics. Research citations per paper is calculated from data sourced from Elsevier Scopus. Each library program is given a ranking based on the citations per paper published by any faculty member, with outlier papers (particularly a paper that has an unusually high number of citations) removed. H-index score is derived from the number of papers published and the number of citations per paper as a function of one another, with the h-index number being the largest number of papers x with x citations (Hirsch, 2005). For example, if a professor publishes 10 papers with at least 10 citations each she would have an h-index of 10.

The overall QS World Ranking for an academic program is calculated by a weighting system (O’Callaghan, 2017). Each discipline is assigned unique weightings based on the total research output within the profession. Though the exact ratios for the field of Library and Information Management are not made publicly available, by sampling a series of ratios it is clear the largest weightings in the ratio must be dedicated to academic reputation and to H-index citations while employer reputation is most likely the smallest component of the formula. For instance, a weighting of 45% for academic reputation, 5% for employer reputation, 15% for citations, and 35% for H-index provides “total scores” in line with that reported by the site – as does 40% for reputation, 5% for reputation, 20% for citations, and 35% for H-index – while anything with an employer weighting of more than 10% will result in a total that is too low to meet the “total” score reported by QS. This is further supported by the fact that 5 of the top 10 LIS programs have employer reputation scores below 65, including one school in the top 10 with an employer score of 44.

The QS World Rankings are open to similar biases apparent in the US News Rankings. While the use of citations numbers and H-indices is a good measure to promote greater objectivity, it is clear that these objective measures are not as valued as the academic rankings, nor is the potential measure of student outcomes – employer reputation – valued much at all (Isidro et al., 2010; Huang, 2012; Soh, 2013). While this may be an acceptable measure of which library programs presently have the most accomplished professors, it is not a particularly useful measure of student success or long-term stability. Furthermore, every one of the universities ranked in the QS World LIS rankings is also ranked in the top 600 universities worldwide by the QS World general rankings, providing further evidence of a bias towards LIS schools at universities QS World considers to be prestigious.

2.3 College Choice

College Choice (a U.S.-based college and university ranking website) ranks programs based on five factors, each of which is weighed equally (College Choice, 2018). The first of these factors is Quality. According to College Choice, Quality is defined as a combination of “graduation rate, strength of faculty, and curriculum” (College Choice, 2018). College Choice suggests that this information is available from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). IPEDS, however, does not truly assess strength of faculty or curriculum – both of which seem to be subjective measures (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018).

The second factor included in College Choice rankings is Reputation. College Choice suggests that this measure is largely derived from the US News and World Report rankings (College Choice, 2018). The third factor is Affordability. This is derived from net cost of degree as well as the percent financial aid awarded. Similarly, the fourth factor, Value, is calculated as a return on investment of earning capacity versus cost to earn degree. However, the measure of earning capacity for the category of library and information science is the same regardless of the program attended, meaning that the rankings for Value will be the same as those for Affordability among LIS programs. The final factor, Satisfaction, is calculated using retention rates and reviews on Rate My Professor (College Choice, 2018). Using Rate My Professor is problematic for LIS, since most of the LIS students are master’s level or above, and Rate My Professor is mostly used by undergraduates, not graduate students (Brown et al., 2009). This invites a potential bias towards those few LIS programs that do offer a bachelor’s program in library and information science. Rate My Professor has also been shown to be inaccurate, since it is most often used only by those who regard a professor very highly or poorly (i.e. there is a bias towards the most polarizing opinions of an instructor) (Felton et al., 2008).

College Choice uses a cookbook methodology (“dash of this…sprinkle of that”), which is not uncommon in rankings of universities (Espeland & Sauder, 2007). The phrases “scan the reviews” and “look into the following criteria” do not particularly inspire assurance in the quality of rankings. The site also suggests that the methodology may differ from ranking to ranking but does not provide specific details of the modifications in the rankings themselves. These discrepancies do not bolster a confidence that the website adhered to a strict methodology. Finally, the site provides no justification as to why only 35 LIS programs are listed, suggesting that this is likely an arbitrary number. This departs from the US News rankings, which lists all ALA-accredited programs, but falls in line with the QS World Rankings, which limits its rankings to 50 programs.

2.4 ALA accreditation status

American Library Association (ALA)-accreditation status has been suggested as one method to “rank” U.S. and Canadian LIS programs (White, 1981, 1993). ALA-accreditation is an important indicator of the ability of library programs to adequately prepare students for careers in library and information organizations. The ALA adheres to a set of standards for accreditation that serve to guide evaluators of LIS programs. Each standard is briefly described below.

The first standard for accreditation is systematic planning. Systematic planning consists of a continuous review of the program’s mission, vision, goals, and learning objectives, assessment of the attainment of these goals, realignment based on the assessment, and communication of planning and assessment activities (American Library Association Office of Accreditation, 2018). Evidence of systematic planning may include surveys and evaluations by current students, alumni, and employers of the programs, coursework, and faculty.

The second standard is curriculum. The curriculum of library programs should be based on the program’s goals and objectives and should provide exposure to “theory, principles, practice, and legal and ethical issues and values necessary for the provision of service in libraries and information agencies” (American Library Association Office of Accreditation, 2018). The curriculum should be updated regularly to stay current with the needs and trends in the profession. The curriculum should allow for “individual needs, goals, and aspirations to be met within the context of program requirements established by the program.” Evaluation of the curriculum should come not just from the faculty but from all stakeholders.

The third standard is faculty. The standard requires a full-time faculty that is “sufficient in number and in diversity of specialties to carry out the major share of the teaching, research, and service activities required for the program” (American Library Association Office of Accreditation, 2018). The program must make efforts to recruit and retain faculty from diverse backgrounds and those with relevant knowledge in their areas of instruction. Faculty members should come from a variety of academic institutions, hold advanced degrees, and have a sustained record of research accomplishment. All faculty should be regularly evaluated to ensure sustained excellence.

The fourth standard is students. LIS programs should have standards for admission that are applied consistently and these standards should be communicated to potential applicants in addition to information about the program (American Library Association Office of Accreditation, 2018). The program must foster student participation and achievement through the development of plans of study, provision of academic and career support, and opportunities to participate in research and professional organizations. The program should use student feedback to improve the program.

The fifth and final standard is administration, finances, and resources. This standard stipulates that the program should have equitable standing within its parent institution as other academic programs (American Library Association Office of Accreditation, 2018). Compensation for faculty and staff should be equitable to the university and similarly-situated programs and should be based on “education, experience, responsibilities, and accomplishments” (American Library Association Office of Accreditation, 2018). The learning environment and facilities should meet the needs of students. Programs must have “explicit, documented evidence of its ongoing decision-making processes” (American Library Association Office of Accreditation, 2018).

While the accreditation status of a program can certainly indicate that said program meets a threshold of quality, it provides no description of quality beyond that certification. Thus, suggesting that accreditation status be the only measure of quality is tantamount to saying that all library programs with accreditation status are of equal quality (White, 1987). Furthermore, using ALA-accreditation status as the only measure of library program quality suggests that those programs without this status lack quality. This is problematic because it neglects (as many other rankings do as well) the many high-quality programs outside of the United States and Canada. If the ranking claims to rank “library and information science programs” and not just “library and information science programs in the United States,” then it is inappropriate for the measure not to be scalable to include all LIS programs globally (Ordorika & Lloyd, 2014).

2.5 Other measures

There are several specialized rankings of LIS programs that deserve brief mention. One such ranking is the Best Schools ranking of the Best Online Master of Library and Information Science Degree Programs in the United States. Best Schools rankings weigh curriculum (“compared to known leading schools in that discipline”), strength of faculty scholarship (faculty experience, leadership, publications, and awards), reputation (ranking among peers), financial aid (based on university financial aid accreditation), and range of degree programs (for MLIS rankings, this includes degree concentrations) (thebestschools.org, 2018). For rankings of online programs there is also a factor of strength of online instruction methodology. The Best Schools rankings list only programs with online degree programs, and only the top twenty of these programs.

LibraryScienceList.com has a ranking based off of the US News and World Report ranking that incorporates accreditation status (Schleef, 2013). This ranking, however, has the same ranking order as the US News Report and so adds very little to that ranking. Grad School Hub provides a different approach from most other rankings. The Hub’s ranking incorporates non-MLIS programs in library science, such as the M.Ed. at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, the University of Colorado’s Master of Information and Learning Technologies, and Texas A&M’s Master of Educational Technology and Library Science (which receives the number one position in the ranking). Grad School Hub creates its rankings based solely on the cost to earn a degree, thus is not representative of all the factors that may influence perceived quality (Grad School Hub, 2016).

2.6 Scholarly attempts to rank LIS programs

J. Perian Danton provides a thorough review of U.S.-based LIS program rankings in a 1983 article. Danton traces the roots of library program rankings to a 1956 request by the dean of the library school at California-Berkeley to the deans and directors of the 34 other schools across the United States and Canada, asking for a ranking of the top 10 programs. Danton notes that this measure, lacking substantive objective elements, “certainly does not result in a measure of quality and caution must be exercise in drawing conclusions from it” (Danton, 1983, p. 107).

The first measure to be considered a “detailed assessment of graduate library education” (Danton, 1983, p. 108) was published by Ray L. and Patricia A. Carpenter in 1968 (Carpenter & Carpenter, 1970). The Carpenters employed a similar methodology as the Cal-Berkeley director, insofar as they surveyed directors of LIS programs on their perceptions of the quality of other programs, but their methodology was much more thorough in its approach. The overall effectiveness of the program and the quality of faculty comprised two dimensions of the ranking. The researchers asked a variety of questions about the quality of relationships among faculty, backgrounds of faculty education, institutional loyalty, and perceived program quality.

Carpenter and Carpenter (1970), Blau and Marguiles (1974), and White (1981, 1987, 1993) also assessed U.S. LIS program directors’ perceptions of quality and which programs they believed most contributed to the “advancement of the profession through research, publication, and leadership” (White, 1987, p. 251). Like the preceding rankings, these rankings did not evaluate curriculum, financial standing, or student perceptions. The most significant contribution of these authors’ work was a well-detailed methodology, including the exact questionnaires delivered to library program directors.

Many research studies rank the research productivity of U.S.-based LIS faculty (Meho & Spurgin, 2005; Brace, 1992; Adkins & Budd, 2006). While useful for understanding faculty research production, these studies are too limited to provide significant methodological contributions to the ranking of overall LIS program quality. The studies reveal only information about LIS faculty, which is but a small fragment of what comprises a LIS program. No scholarly rankings in LIS go beyond soliciting opinions of directors and assessing output of faculty to develop a comprehensive outlook for library programs.

3. How representative are the most popular rankings towards what LIS students think matters?

3.1 Methods

All of the rankings of U.S.-based LIS programs that currently exist overlook a number of factors that are important to prospective students. Librarianship is a peculiar profession, in that most students who pursue the profession do so out of compassion for the profession and what it represents, rather than to necessarily improve their financial situation (Van House, 1988; Ard et al., 2006; Harris & Wilkinson, 2001; Dewey, 1985; Rathbun-Grubb & Marshall, 2009). There are hundreds of bachelor-level degree programs in the United States that have higher starting salaries than a masters-level librarian (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). That said, prospective library school students are certainly concerned with securing a job and so consider student outcomes to be a major factor in selecting a school (Shannon, 2008). Many of the prospective students also have full-time jobs and families, so the cost of degree, faculty-to-student ratios, and availability of faculty (outside of normal hours) can all be important factors (Meder, 1980; Van House, 1988; McCook & Moen, 1992). Factors such as minority enrollment and income of LIS programs may provide insight into the diversity and long-term sustainability of the programs (McCook & Moen, 1992). The American Library Association’s Office of Accreditation (ALA OA) provides information on several of these categories. Table 1 ranks all the US ALA-accredited programs within each category for which the ALA provides information. Information of cost for degree comes from the individual websites of each MLIS program and its parent institution (cost per graduate tuition and fees per credit hour multiplied by the number of credit hours required for the program).

Table 1
Rankings of ALA-accredited MLS Programs in US, based on office of accreditation data

School

Average ranking

on all

factors

Size

faculty

Faculty-

student

ratio

Minority enrollment

Total degrees

awarded

Annual income

Afford-

ability

degree

Alabama

Albany

Arizona

Buffalo

Catholic U of America

Chicago State

Clarion

Denver

Dominican

Drexel

East Carolina

Emporia State

Florida State

Hawaii

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kent State

Kentucky

Long Island

Louisiana State

Maryland

Michigan

Missouri

North Carolina –

Chapel Hill

North Carolina –

Greensboro

North Carolina Central

North Texas

Oklahoma

Pittsburgh

Pratt Institute

Queens College

Rhode Island

Rutgers

San Jose State

Simmons

South Carolina

South Florida

Southern California

Southern Connecticut

State

Southern Mississippi

St. Catherine

St. Johns

Table 1, continued

School

Average ranking

on all

factors

Size

faculty

Faculty-

student

ratio

Minority enrollment

Total degrees

awarded

Annual income

Afford-

ability

degree

Syracuse

Tennessee

Texas

Texas Woman’s

UCLA

Valdosta

Washington

Wayne State

Wisconsin-Madison

Wisconsin-Milwaukee

To further demonstrate the shortcomings of the three biggest rankings of U.S. LIS programs (US News, QS World, and College Choice), this study uses statistical analyses to investigate the relationships between the rankings and the categories of information that have been found to be important to LIS students (and potential students), as displayed in Table 1. ANOVAs are performed to analyze variance in two data sets: the average rankings (across the big three rankings) sorted by whether or not the university in which the LIS program resides is considered a Research 1 university (based on Carnegie Classifications list), and the ALA Office of Accreditation data based on the same classifications. ANOVAs are also used to evaluate the same average ranking data based on whether a LIS program is a member of the i-school consortium. These analyses are important because, theoretically, whether or not a university/program is a member of either group reflects not on the quality of MLS education, but rather on the research culture of the university/program (Centra, 1983; Ramsden & Moses, 1992; Brew, 1999).

Pearson correlations are also used to examine relationships between each of the three rankings and the categories of data (size of faculty, faculty-student ratio, minority enrollment, total degrees awarded, annual income, and cost for degree) from Table 1.

3.2 Findings

The statistical analyses provide further evidence of why the inclusion of measures that may be important to students is vital. In Table 2, the results of three ANOVAs are shown. In the top row, the data comparing the average ranking on the big three rankings and whether the university in which the program resides is classified as a “Research 1 University” are shown. This significant result demonstrates a strong difference in mean for the rankings of Research 1 and non-Research 1 universities’ LIS programs (with non-Research 1 being much lower ranked on average).

Table 2
Analysis of Variance (AVOVA) for LIS school rankings based on research 1 and iSchool status

Category	Average ranking	F-value	P-value
Average of Three Most Popular Rankings vs. R1 Status	R1: 19 Non-R1: 34	26.19	$<$ 0.001
Rankings Based on ALA OA Data vs. R1 Status	R1: 25 Non-R1: 28	4.91	0.040
Average of Three Most Popular Rankings vs. iSchool Status	I: 18 Non-I: 31	24.24	$<$ 0.001
Rankings Based on ALA OA Data vs. iSchool Status	I: 21 Non-I: 30	14.01	0.010

Does this discrepancy in the rankings among R1 and non-R1 universities’ programs also occur with the ALA OA data-based rankings? Row two of Table 2 displays the ANOVA results for the average ranking of universities based on ALA OA statistics, again divided into the two groups (Research 1/non-Research 1). In this case, there is still a significant difference, but it is far less pronounced than the other rankings. This level of difference makes logical sense, as Research 1 institutions do often have more faculty and students, without being the extreme statistical disparity of the other three rankings.

Rows three and four of Table 2 present the ANOVAs for i-school status. The difference is less pronounced than Research 1 status, but still exists. Whether there is a bias or not, the potential for bias within the divisions of i-schools/non-i-schools is yet another reason why allowing LIS schools to rank other LIS schools is problematic. Especially because i-schools outnumber those LIS programs that are not i-schools, it can create a culture where schools may believe that they have to join the consortium in order to receive a good ranking from their peers. This potential bias/conflict-of-interest is highly unlikely to be tolerated in any academic setting (e.g., research, awards) outside of program rankings, and should not be tolerated there either. Additionally, it is worth noting that i-schools generally have greater research productivity (possibly due to the relationship between i-schools and Research 1 institutions) (Budd, 2015; Paul & Chatterjee, 2019), which again will favor these institutions in any rankings that places research as a major factor.

With a unique professional discipline like LIS, where the prestige of the university (so long as it is ALA-accredited) has very little impact on actually getting a job after graduation (Gabehart, 1990; Mullins, 2012), there is no excuse for such a strong difference to exist between the major rankings based on Research 1 status. Professional degree students, in general, care very little about the research output of their professors or the prestige of the university. They mostly want their professors to be good teachers and to earn their degrees as quickly and cheap as possible (Meder, 1980; McCook & Moen, 1992). It is a disservice to these students for the prestige or research output of a university to have a stronger relationship with ranking than the faculty-student ratio or cost of degree. This, however, is not a surprising finding, as researchers have pointed to the relationship between Research 1 status and perception of universities by faculty for many years – even though this does not truly speak to the quality of education for students (which the authors of the present study again argue is the most important factor of professional, returning-adult students) (McCormick & Zhao, 2005; McCormick, 2008).

Table 3

Pearson correlations for three most popular rankings and ALA OA data

Ranking

Size of faculty

Faculty-

student ratio

Minority enrollment

Total degrees awarded

Annual income

Cost of degree

US news

0.666

-

0.246

0.169

0.238

0.786

-

0.194

QS world

0.206

-

0.433

-

0.088

-

0.047

0.247

-

0.303

College choice

0.615

-

0.208

0.237

0.214

0.640

-

0.124

P-value $<$ 0.05 for all correlations.

Table 3 shows the Pearson correlation for each of the three major rankings and the ALA OA categories. The only categories that show a strong positive relationships with the rankings are size of faculty (better ranked programs generally have larger faculties) and annual income (better ranked programs generally make more money). QS World has a negative correlation with minority enrollment. Faculty-student ratio has a negative correlation with two of the three rankings. Perhaps the most damning finding about the relationship between these rankings and categories is the cost of earning a MLIS degree. With all of the big three rankings, there is a negative correlation between ranking and cost of degree (i.e., the top-ranked universities cost more to earn a degree). But what is more important for the busy, professional (often adult-returning) learner than the cost to earn their degree? These rankings simply do not reflect what is important to student. They reflect prestige of faculty and universities, not the factors about which potential LIS students care.

4. A framework for improving rankings of LIS programs?

This article has demonstrated the inadequacy of current rankings of U.S. LIS programs. These rankings fail to assess the factors that are truly important to students, instead focusing on opinion of LIS faculty towards other LIS faculty or factors like prestige of the university and research output. These factors are important to a university, but, frankly, are not particularly important to most MLIS students, who are simply seeking to earn a professional credential to pursue further employment potentials. Brandishing any of the current rankings of LIS programs is practically tantamount to bragging that an airline has the “smartest” pilots in the world – that’s great, but are they good at flying? Are the planes safe? Do they normally arrive on time? What’s the cost for a ticket? Do airline passengers really care about the IQ of their pilots beyond a minimal threshold? Certainly not enough to base the bulk of a ranking around it.

In light of the criticisms discussed in this paper, it is reasonable to say, “well, if you think they aren’t good, then you suggest something better.” The problem of rankings of U.S. LIS programs is not a simple one and the authors of this study by no means are prepared to provide a definitive guide. The best that can be done – for now – is to look at some rankings that appear to do things right (or at least better) and point out the features that appear to make them more useful to students. These features, as the reader might imagine, align closely with the findings about what factors are important to LIS students, as found by Meder (1980) and McCook and Moen (1992).

4.1 What can evidence-based research tell us about the creation of representative LIS school rankings?

There are several potential models for improving the depth and quality of U.S. LIS program rankings and, indeed, many of these are produced by the same entities that provide the flawed rankings discussed earlier in this article. Many of these entities have quite thorough, quantitative and empirically-driven methodologies in place for general university rankings (Dill & Soo, 2005). They do not, however, apply these methodologies to their subject rankings (like that of LIS programs). This may be due to a certain level of apathy or laziness towards a set of subject rankings that are seen by relatively few in comparison to the much more popular overall rankings of universities. These subject rankings, however, do matter. They are the rankings that graduate students will refer to more so than any overall ranking (Dill, 2009). There are only 53 LIS programs in the United States that are accredited by, or under consideration for accreditation by, the American Library Association, and they are housed within very different types of universities. The LIS subject rankings should theoretically provide much more valuable information than the rankings of universities in general.

One example is the U.S. News and World Report’s general rankings of universities in the United States. The U.S. News and World Report uses “16 measures of academic quality” to rank universities (overall rankings, not “programs” or “subjects” rankings), stating that they use “hard objective data alone (to) determine each school’s rank” (Morse et al., 2018). These 16 measures are grouped into six “indicators,” or categories: outcomes, faculty resources, expert opinion, financial resources, student excellence, and alumni giving. Outcomes, weighed at 35%, consists of “social mobility” – or supporting students from low-incomes backgrounds – six-year graduation and first-year retention rates, and actual graduation rate performance versus expected. The category of faculty resources, weighted at 20%, consists of the measures of class size, faculty salary, proportion of faculty with terminal degree in their field, proportion of full-time faculty, and student-faculty ratio. Expert Opinion, also weighed at 20%, consists of a peer assessment and a high school counselor assessment. Financial Resources, weighted 10%, calculates per student spending on instruction, research, and student services. Student Excellence, also weighted at 10%, considers incoming students’ scores on standardized tests and high school class standing. Alumni Giving, weighted 5%, is based on the proportion of alumni who gave to their alma mater during a given time period.

Why could adapting the US News general rankings work better for U.S. LIS programs? Look to the results of McCook and Moen’s (1992) study of “reasons for selecting schools (of LIS).” The top factors they list are location, financial assistance, cost, type of program. They also found that student outcomes were important. These factors are all covered in the US News general ranking. This model also does not completely eliminate the subjective opinion of faculty either. It’s a compromise of sorts. The percentages are not perfect – cost is a very important factor for potential LIS students and should probably be weighed as such (McCook & Moen, 1992) – the authors of the present study, however, believe this model begins to move rankings of LIS programs in a positive and more representative direction.

Most of the measures used for the U.S. News Rankings of universities are available for U.S. LIS programs through sources like the ALA’s Office of Accreditation (as in Table 1). Most additional measures, like alumni giving and faculty salaries and educational attainment, could be easily reported by universities, just as is done with the overall ranking for universities. In the case of the high school counselor assessment (which counts as 10% of the total ranking), this could reasonably be replaced by a survey of professional librarians, which often serve this same type of advisory role for future LIS students within their institutions.

A few of these measures may seem a bit more irrelevant to US LIS programs, and so may be modified or removed, though they could also be justified for inclusion. While standardized tests are, by no means, a perfect measure of student success – the relationship between GRE scores and graduate school performance has been shown to be imperfect, for instance (Marston, 1971; Ingram, 1983) – in general they do have a moderate predictive ability, so it is not far-fetched to use this measure to judge the quality of incoming students to an academic program (of course, the fact that many MLIS programs do not require a GRE score may complicate this measure) (Kuncel et al., 2001; Chingos, 2018). Alumni giving does have a positive impact on current students (Hinrichs, 2017). These fund scholarships and fellowships for incoming students, domestic and international travel for students, and upgrades in technology.

Another option for improving U.S. LIS program rankings is incorporating the Boeing model (Basken, 2008). The idea behind the rankings were fairly simple, rather than asking schools about what they think about other schools, ask employers and employees. Boeing identified its employees with the greatest corporate loyalty and achievement and, based on the colleges these employees attended and the employees’ feedback, created its own rankings of college programs. The benefit of this ranking, as opposed to US News, QS World, and College Choice, is that the bulk of the weighting (or all, in this instance) reflected the perception of former students and their employer(s) towards academic programs, rather than the opinion of one academic program toward another. There is bias to this ranking in that it surveyed graduates who had jobs (since it was created by an employer), without considering those who do not have jobs or have jobs with lower prestige (who have not been able to find employment in their chosen preferred profession). All rankings will have some bias, even those that use objective measures (it is likely that certain schools benefit in the ALA OA categories not just from quality of education and prestige, but also geographic location, etc., so these rankings are not entirely based on quality of education and outcomes alone).

Perhaps the best answer to the question that leads this section is that no perfect solution to problematic U.S. LIS program rankings currently exists. Future research might identify attributes of LIS schools that are most important to potential and current LIS students today (since the literature is sparse in this area over the last several decades), and the mathematical formulas (weightings) that produce meaningful rankings, to make the realization of more representative rankings possible. These data could be collected via a survey of incoming and current LIS students, perhaps with the weightings of the various attributes in the final rankings based on the frequency of n for each attribute. A similar methodology was used by the American Library Association’s 2017 Task Force on the Context of Future Accreditation to understand the important issues for LIS students and employers and inform the development of renewed accreditation standards for ALA accredited programs (American Library Association, 2017).

4.2 How do we popularize more representative rankings?

There is a reason why the three most popular U.S. LIS school rankings became the three most popular – these might even be perceived as a consequence (or perversion) of cognitive authority, as described by Wilson (1983), and/or a manifestation of the familiarity principle (Zajonc, 1968). When LIS programs cite these flawed rankings, they lend some of their credibility on the topic of LIS education to suggest that the rankings present meaningful and relevant information, even if this is not the case. By marketing these rankings, schools also create a familiarity with them for students that may result in a proclivity to return to this source for information about program quality rather than conduct thorough research to identify those rankings that adhere to the best methodologies.

An important component of popularizing rankings that are more representative of the information needs of potential LIS students is for the programs that use rankings as a marketing tool to avoid the temptation to boast about a top position in a seriously flawed ranking and instead focus on building and supporting rankings that are meaningful to the students they serve. Students have placed a level of trust/power in the expertise of LIS topics in the LIS programs and these programs owe the students to use this power-knowledge responsibly and not support rankings whose methodology to collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information would never make it through a round of peer-review in scholarly journal.

4.3 On the applicability of these concepts in LIS rankings worldwide

As far as creating a ranking of LIS programs that can compare programs across the globe, QS World Rankings has considerable progress over all other rankings – this ranking however, as this article has shown, has deep flaws that almost certainly favor LIS programs in wealthier nations over quality of education (and empirical evidence that illustrates a bias toward English-speaking universities) (Rena, 2010; Huang, 2011; Altbach, 2012). Even the U.S. News general rankings suggested as a more representative ranking of LIS programs would cause challenges for international comparisons. For instance, research has shown that the universities in the United States have a major advantage when it comes to overall finances and university endowments, largely due to the fact that they are located in the wealthiest nation (by GDP) in the world – not because these universities are necessarily deserving of greater endowments (Cantwell, 2016; Meyer & Zhou, 2017). This will be a challenge for any world university ranking and only one of many the rankings will face. The benefit of developing a new ranking from scratch is that it may be designed with the global audience in mind, meaning that quality of education for students (and future library leaders) worldwide is treated as more important than the wealth and language of nations. However, this will not be an easy task, given the different values and goals that countries, individuals, and programs around the world place in their academic programs (Ball, 1998; Ludwick & Silva, 2000).

5. Conclusion

Given the influence of U.S. LIS program rankings on potential students and the marketing of the programs themselves, the major, inherent flaws in these rankings deserve greater attention. None of these rankings address the actual concerns of potential LIS students. In a discipline that emphasizes stringent, empirical research, these rankings have weak methodology and are based largely on potentially-biased opinion of professors and administrators. Perhaps it is time for LIS to create its own ranking that borrows from the successful aspects of other rankings but focuses on the factors that are important to the students of this unique discipline.

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University program rankings in the United States: Failures in assessing important factors for library and information science students

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. An investigation of the major rankings of LIS programs

2.1 US news rankings

2.2 QS world rankings

2.3 College Choice

2.4 ALA accreditation status

2.5 Other measures

2.6 Scholarly attempts to rank LIS programs

3. How representative are the most popular rankings towards what LIS students think matters?

3.1 Methods

Table 1 Rankings of ALA-accredited MLS Programs in US, based on office of accreditation data

Table 2 Analysis of Variance (AVOVA) for LIS school rankings based on research 1 and iSchool status

4.1 What can evidence-based research tell us about the creation of representative LIS school rankings?

4.2 How do we popularize more representative rankings?

4.3 On the applicability of these concepts in LIS rankings worldwide

5. Conclusion

References

Table 1
Rankings of ALA-accredited MLS Programs in US, based on office of accreditation data

Table 2
Analysis of Variance (AVOVA) for LIS school rankings based on research 1 and iSchool status