Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

Top 5 higher education (HE) institutions

in Vietnam

Bao Tran

January 2010

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 Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

ABSTRACT
This paper attempts to present a multi-faceted to rank the top Higher Education (HE) institutions
in Vietnam. The selective methodology is referenced from Quacquarelli Symond (QS),
Webometrics database and Google Pagerank.
Keyword: Higher Education (HE), ranking, learning, teaching, research.

1. Introduction
There are various indicators to weigh in ranking HE institutions. According to Moodie(Moodie
and Griffith, 2007), those indicators are generally from three main data sources:
1. Institutions
2. Third-party data sources
3. Surveys or questionnaire
Each ranking system has its own advantages and shortcomings. In term of validity, reliability and
prestige, there are less than ten of popular ranking systems:
4. Shanghai Jiaotong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities
5. The Higher Educational Supplement’s ranking
6. The Web Ranking of Webometrics
7. MBA school ranking of Financial Times
8. US school ranking of Business Weeks
While the first two systems rank interdisciplinary universities, the last two are specific on
business major. And Webometrics system ranks institutions in term of web traffic.
Shanghai Jiaotong University’s Academic Ranking
International and Asian rankings have a strong prejudice toward Research. Jannuzi (2008)
indicates that Shanghai Jiaotong University published the first Academic Ranking of World
Universities (ARWU) in 2003. In ARWA, the university employing 6 factor weights includes:

alumni who won a Nobel prize or a Field medal for mathematics 10%

staff who won a Nobel prize or a Field medal for mathematics 20%

highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories 20%

articles published in Nature and Science 20%

articles in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index 20%

correction for institutional size 10%

Total 100%

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 Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

Except the Nobel Peace Prize, there are no Vietnamese scholars or alumni who won any other
Nobel Prize or Field medal. In addition, in Vietnam, there are up to 85% of research papers
conducted in Vietnamese (Khoo and Hugo, 2007). Therefore, it is likely that there are few highly
cited researchers from a Vietnamese university. Definitely, the ARWU report may be improper
for ranking of Vietnamese HE institutions.
The Higher Educational Supplement’s ranking
Contrarily, North American and UK rankings have a strong prejudice towards Students
Characteristics and instructional structure. The Higher Education QS (THES) ranking is the
representative of this approach (U.K. Department for education and skills, 2006). The rank is
based on the 5 factor which weights:

survey of 1,300 academics in 88 countries 50%

% overseas staff 5%

% overseas students 5%

Staff: student ratio 20%

citations per staff 20%

Total 100%

The Times Higher Education asked academic to name up the top universities and the (unit) fields
to make reasonable judgment. THES gave 5% of its score for the ratio of international students
and 5% weight for overseas staff. While it may be a good indicator of the quality of universities
in Anglophone countries (Li et al., 2009p 427), it is a shortcoming for Vietnamese institutions.

Webometrics ranking

Cybermetrics Lab (2008) has a strong bias over the web presence of universities and its
popularity. It uses 4 factors which weight:

Size Number of pages indexed by: Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Exalead 20%

Visibility The total number of unique inlinks, obtained from Yahoo Search 50%

Rich files % of PDF, PS and DOC format of publics, indexed by Google 15%

Scholar Google Scholar measures the number of well-cited research paper 15%

Total 100%

This paper reuses the idea of Webometrics ranking because of availability of quantitative data,
especially the bibliometric and scientometric indicators (Cybermetrics Lab, 2008).

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 Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

Ranking Vietnam HE institutions: obstacles in methodology

There are some obstacles in the methodology to rank universities in Vietnam.

- Teaching and learning in English is still uncommon. It is hard to get peer review from
overseas researchers and students.
- Second, The Thanhnien News (2008) reports that Vietnamese academics are introvert. It
is unlikely to get peer review from domestic institutions.
- According to Williams and Dyke (2004), a fully multidisciplinary HE institution should
process the following fields: Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Life Sciences &
Biomedicine and Art & Humanities. Based on that classification, there is no
multidisciplinary university in Vietnam.

2 Methodology

Simple overview

The data sources from institutions and questionnaire may be unavailable for the ranking system.
Thus, ARWU and THES system may be inappropriate to measure the position of Vietnamese HE
institutions. Alternatively, the approach of employing information from third-party database
seems available and appropriate. The databases used are:

- The Quacquarelli Symond (QS) database (60%)

- Webometrics ranking (25%)
- Google Pagerank (15%)

Quacquarelli Symond
Weight chart

As the chart show, the

Gogole Pagerank, 15%
academic and student review
are vital to the performance
and prestige of a university
and the QS database also has
a strong bias toward student
characteristics and academic
peer review. Thus, it should
be weighted most (60%). Webometrics, 25%

QS database, 60%
THES ranking is mostly
based on the QS database.
The database devises a
ranking system that captures
universities as a whole
(entity) (Li et al., 2009), with data derived from academic specialists and from prestigious HR

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 Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

companies and recruiters, as well as other measure relating to teaching, research and global
appeal.

Although, the QS makes use a vast number of indicators to measure the university’s prestige,
there are merely some indicators of which data is available for a certain number of Vietnamese
institutions. They are:

- IFR International faculty review (30%)

- SFR Student to faculty ratio (20%)
- PPF Papers per faculty (20%)
- CPP Citation per papers (20%)
- ISR International student review (5%)
- SEO Student exchange outbound (5%)

IFR SFR PPF CPP ISR SEO Score

Cantho University 39 30 22 27 25 0 28.75
Vietnam National University, Hanoi 35 37 22 0 36 0 24.1
Hue University 8 0 21 0 0 6 6.9
University of Danang 5 0 21 0 0 25 6.95
Vietnam National University, HCM 0 0 21 0 0 0 4.2
University of Economics, HCM 0 0 21 0 0 0 4.2
University of Technology, HCM 0 0 21 0 0 0 4.2
University of Natural Science HCM 0 0 21 0 0 0 4.2
Hanoi University of Technology 0 0 22 0 0 0 4.4
Hanoi University of Education 0 0 22 0 0 0 4.4
National Economics University 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

In term of research and student review, Cantho University is the best performer in Vietnamese
HE sector. Vietnam National University Hanoi is the runner up and Hue University gets the
bronze medal. University of Danang is right after Hue University.

Interestingly, HE institutions in Hochiminh City seem much less competitive in these criteria.
They take the 4th to 7th position in the university league. The left three universities are from
Hanoi. On general, HE institutions from Hochiminh City and Hanoi are dominating the league
although they are not ranked high.

Webometrics

A fundamental tenet of the ranking is how visible and appealing that a university’s portal is to
the Netizens. In practice, Webometrics ranking strongly emphasizes on the Net presence and
popularity of the universities (Usher, 2009). This capability indicates globalization degree of an
institution. Accordingly, it should be accounted up to 25% of the measurement.

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 Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

Webometrics country rank

(Moodie, 2007) Score
University of Technology, HCM 1 45
Cantho University 2 42
University of Natural Science HCM 3 40
Vietnam National University HN 4 40
Hanoi University of Technology 5 39.3
University of Agriculture and Forestry 6 39
University of Economics, HCM 7 38.6
Water Resource University 8 38
University of Danang 9 37
Hanoi School of Public Health 10 29
Vietnam National University, HCM 11 28

In term of cybermetrics, University of Technology HCM is the champion in Vietnamese list.

Cantho University, again, confirms its advantages by getting the silver plate in the web ranking.
The third is the University of Natural Science HCM. Contrary to the previous QS selection,
universities in Hochiminh perform outstandingly. In individual position, Cantho University
confirms its strengths by being the best in QS criteria and the runner in Webometrics ranking
systems.

Google Pagerank

Google Pagerank is the heart of Google search engine(Brin and Page, 2000). In addition, Brin
and Page (2000) defines “PageRank is an excellent way to prioritize the results of web keyword
searches”. This means that Google Pagerank can be a critical indicator to measure the web
prestige of a university. Consequently, Google Pagerank is weighted 15% in the ranking.

University name URL Google Page rank

Vietnam National University HN http://www.vnu.edu.vn/ 8

University of Technology HCM http://www.hcmut.edu.vn/ 7

University of Natural Science, HCM http://www.hcmus.edu.vn/ 7

Hanoi University of Technology http://hut.edu.vn 7

National Economics University HCM http://www.neu.edu.vn/ 7

Cantho University http://www.ctu.edu.vn/en/ 7

University of Economics HCM http://www.ueh.edu.vn/ 6

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 Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

Hue University http://www.hce.edu.vn/ 6

Hanoi University of Education http://www.hnue.edu.vn 6

Water Resource University http://www.wru.edu.vn 6

Danang University http://www.dut.edu.vn/ 6

As the table illustrates, Vietnam National University is the best in term of Google Pagerank.
University of Technology HCM is the runner-up with a grade of 7. Those following university
share the same rank:

- University of Natural Science HCM

- Hanoi University of Technology
- National Economics University HN
- Cantho university

Until now, various ranking systems lead the difference in the ranking order. In order to conclude
precisely, it is necessary to sum up the weighted indicators. It should be:

QS Webometrics GPR[ 1 ] Score

Cantho Univeristy 28.8 42 7 38.3
Vietnam National University, Hanoi 24.1 28 8 33.5
Hue University 6.9 24 6 19.1
University of Danang 6.95 37 6 22.4
Vietnam National University, HCM 4.2 28 5 17
University of Economics HCM 4.2 38.6 6 21.2
University of Technology HCM 4.2 45 7 24.3
University of Natural Science, HCM 4.2 40 7 23
Hanoi University of Technology 4.4 39.3 7 23
Hanoi University of Education 4.4 25 4 14.9
National Economics University 0 25 7 16.8

3 Data discussion

As the table shows, Cantho University is the best performer in the Vietnamese university league.
The runner-up is Vietnam National University in Hanoi with a grade o 33.5. University of
Technology HCM takes the third place with a big gap from the runner-up (24.3). Close followers
are the University of Natural Science HCM and Hanoi University of Technology. Thus, the top
five HE institutions in Vietnam are:

1
QS and Webometrics score can be measured up to 100 (maximum) so the Google Pagerank (GPR) is timed 10 in
order to balance the scorecard.

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 Top 5 higher education institutions in Vietnam

1. Cantho University
2. Vietnam National University Hanoi
3. University of Technology HCM
4. University of Natural Science HCM & Hanoi University of Technology

Based on their fields, it is likely that Vietnam put a strong effort in the field of natural science. In
Top Five, there is no university which is specialized in social science, life science & biology and
art and humanity science.

Although Cantho is not a metropolitan city in Vietnam, its regional university leads the Ivy
League of Vietnam. In fact, Cantho is more multidisciplinary than other institutions; so it
explains its champion position.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Brin, S. & Page, L. (2000) The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search
Engine. Stanford, CA 94305, Computer Science Department, Stanford University,
2. Cybermetrics Lab (2008) Methodology.
3. Jannuzi, C. (2008) Japan Aims for 'World Class' Universities. Japan Higher Education
Outlook 2008.
4. Khoo, S.-E. & Hugo, G. (2007) Trades Skills Formation, Skilled Migration and
Temporary Labour Flows. Asia-Pacific Skilled Migration to Australia WORKSHOP.
Sydney, Australia, Centre for Research on Social Inclusion.
5. Li, M., Shankar, S. & Tang, K. K. (2009) Why does the US dominate university league
tables? Queensland, Australia, School of Economics, The University of Queensland.
6. Moodie, G. & Griffith (2007) University rankings. Griffith University: Australian
Tertiary Education, 2007.
7. Thanhnien News (2008) Vietnam to announce first-ever university rankings. Hanoi,
Vietnam.
8. U.K. Department for Education and Skills (2006) Higher education funding –
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9. Usher, A. (2009) University Rankings and league tables - their constructions and use.
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10. Williams, R. & Dyke, N. V. (2004) The International Standing of Australian Universities.
Melbourne : Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research, 2004.

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