University Rankings: A Dead End

Abstract

The ranking systems for universities aim at the quantification of allaspects of university life. For many decades, universities prided themselves on the differences among them. Rankings reduced discussions about the qualitative differences among universities to discussions of numerical differences. Perhaps the closest one can get to drawing a road map of the present and future of universities is understanding the form and content of the rankings within the overall framework of the digital condition. The digital condition already forces the adoption of new ethical modes, restructures working time, imposes styles of reading, affects teaching, and dictates new research practices. But above all, the rearticulations of democracy due to the digital condition will mark the new state of the universities. And such a prospect can perhaps be defined within Bill Sharpe's three horizons framework.