$$News and Reports$$

Sep. 18, 2014
 

 

BGU researchers have proposed a new ranking system for universities worldwide in the field of cyber research.

According to members of the Departments of Information Systems Engineering and the Department of Computer Science, “Cyberspace is the arena in which computer systems and human users produce, store, and exchange information online. In recent years this area has become the focus of research and teaching at various universities around the world.” They decided to use an objective guide to rate the standard of research around the world in conjunction with the new joint program of the two Departments in cyber security.  

Since journals serve as the main outlets for publishing scientific research, the proposed ranking is based on the quantity and quality of the faculties’ publications from the institution being measured. For purposes of preparing the ranking, all the journal publications which are indexed by Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index were used that satisfy quality criteria. The Impact Factor of these journals is published annually based on this index. The Israel Higher Education Planning and Budgeting Committee (VATAT) utilizes the annual Impact Factor to financially reward universities according to their publications.

The list of the top ten institutions in the field of cyber technology includes prestigious American universities such as: MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton University, as well as leading universities in the Far East. Two Israeli institutions managed to break into the world's top one hundred institutions: Ben-Gurion University (ranked 49) and Technion (ranked 91). This is particularly noteworthy given that the ranking is not normalized according to the volume of the institution and therefore larger institutions are given a clear advantage.

Rating system

Like the Shanghai Ranking of world research institutions, the proposed ranking is based on articles within the Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index that were published within the last five years (from 2009 – 2013). Only articles denoted specifically as an "Article" are considered (e.g., review articles or editorials were not accounted for).

Because it is a new and multidisciplinary field, the subject of cyberspace does not appear underneath one single category in the Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index. Therefore, the proposed ranking was based on three categories: two existing categories "Computer Science -- Information Systems," and "Computer Science -- Cybernetics" as well as a new category that we define and refer to as "Information Security". The new category "Information Security” is comprised of all journals that exclusively deal with information security (except those which deal with the field of cryptology).

Like the Shanghai Ranking, the first two categories were measured by the number of publications (PUB index) as well as the percentage of publications in the top twenty percent of the best journals in the category. The top twenty percent journals are defined as those whose impact factors are in the top twenty percent of each category, according to the Journal Citation Report, published by Thomson Reuters in July 2014. For the newly defined category (Information Security) for which there is no Thomson Reuters category ranking, only the number of publications was used. Similar to the Shanghai Ranking, the number of publications in a particular category is normalized to the range from zero to one by dividing the maximum number of publications that a certain university published in that same category. 

 

Top One Hundred Universities In the World in the Field of Cyber

Total Score

Organizations

Rank

0.723388703

NANYANG TECHNOL UNIV

1

0.648732754

TSINGHUA UNIV

2

0.561770096

PURDUE UNIV

3

0.554498407

PENN STATE UNIV

4

0.550599664

UNIV ILLINOIS

5

0.529125371

XIDIAN UNIV

6

0.505416414

MIT

7

0.504079556

CITY UNIV HONG KONG

8

0.497793762

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIV

9

0.488682804

PRINCETON UNIV

10

0.486924965

HONG KONG POLYTECH UNIV

11

0.46677352

NEW JERSEY INST TECHNOL

12

0.466561474

UNIV WATERLOO

13

0.462315962

RUTGERS STATE UNIV

14

0.457400494

SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIV

15

0.455280847

UNIV MARYLAND

16

0.449173849

NATL UNIV SINGAPORE

17

0.448420002

ECOLE POLYTECH FED LAUSANNE

18

0.448364243

GEORGIA INST TECHNOL

19

0.445704874

CHINESE UNIV HONG KONG

20

0.442229212

STANFORD UNIV

21

0.404047944

UNIV TORONTO

22

0.403373157

UNIV MICHIGAN

23

0.400476667

TECH UNIV MUNICH

24

0.396406112

UNIV CONNECTICUT

25

0.394593371

UNIV CALIF BERKELEY

26

0.392169802

UNIV SO CALIF

27

0.387606272

UNIV UTAH

28

0.376657726

UNIV SCI TECHNOL CHINA

29

0.3743184

INDIAN INST TECHNOL

30

0.372019024

UNIV CALIF SAN DIEGO

31

0.368898451

ARIZONA STATE UNIV

32

0.366749027

TONGJI UNIV

33

0.365681616

NORTHEASTERN UNIV

34

0.363969655

NORTHWESTERN UNIV

35

0.363847593

UNIV TEXAS DALLAS

36

0.363688866

UNIV BRITISH COLUMBIA

37

0.363351829

UNIV HONG KONG

38

0.362472924

NATL CHENG KUNG UNIV

39

0.360516233

KOREA ADV INST SCI TECHNOL

40

0.35734171

NATL TSING HUA UNIV

41

0.356076624

HARBIN INST TECHNOL

42

0.352817767

HUAZHONG UNIV SCI TECHNOL

43

0.351300221

NATL TAIWAN UNIV

44

0.350474611

ZHEJIANG UNIV

45

0.350232198

UNIV LONDON IMPERIAL COLL SCI TECHNOL MED

46

0.349131478

VANDERBILT UNIV

47

0.348439472

NYU

48

0.347035661

BEN GURION UNIV NEGEV

49

0.3444722

DELFT UNIV TECHNOL

50

0.342730179

UNIV TEXAS SAN ANTONIO

51

0.340372369

KOREA UNIV

52

0.339778453

SOUTHEAST UNIV

53

0.339526424

UNIV PENN

54

0.338043438

UNIV TWENTE

55

0.337477571

UNIV WASHINGTON

56

0.336406196

CALTECH

57

0.335284192

UNIV NOTRE DAME

58

0.333411987

YALE UNIV

59

0.331879205

UNIV MASSACHUSETTS

60

0.330792709

NATL CHIAO TUNG UNIV

61

0.330686458

ACAD SINICA

62

0.329412716

UNIV PITTSBURGH

63

0.328440674

TEXAS A M UNIV

64

0.328362756

UNIV ARIZONA

65

0.32646476

INDIAN INST SCI

66

0.325938539

KATHOLIEKE UNIV LEUVEN

67

0.323831852

SHARIF UNIV TECHNOL

68

0.323341276

BEIHANG UNIV

69

0.32324647

UNIV MELBOURNE

70

0.322846843

INDIANA UNIV

71

0.321890185

UNIV TECHNOL SYDNEY

72

0.321527471

HONG KONG UNIV SCI TECHNOL

73

0.320256614

UNIV MISSOURI

74

0.319730843

XI AN JIAO TONG UNIV

75

0.317695817

UNIV S AUSTRALIA

76

0.317546815

SUN YAT SEN UNIV

77

0.315083112

UNIV ZARAGOZA

78

0.312144591

UNIV ALBERTA

79

0.312106623

OKLAHOMA STATE UNIV

80

0.311975563

UNIV WISCONSIN

81

0.310401793

RYERSON UNIV

82

0.308997086

SEOUL NATL UNIV

83

0.30740677

MCGILL UNIV

84

0.306969511

UNIV VIRGINIA

85

0.306864261

UNIV ELECT SCI TECHNOL CHINA

86

0.306282682

UNIV CAMBRIDGE

87

0.305671679

UNIV COLORADO

88

0.304210658

UNIV LONDON

89

0.303538509

UNIV TEXAS ARLINGTON

90

0.302970133

TECHNION ISRAEL INST TECHNOL

91

0.302345903

RICE UNIV

92

0.301170566

UNIV SYDNEY

93

0.299795708

PEKING UNIV

94

0.297787193

UNIV MANITOBA

95

0.297627046

UNIV TENNESSEE

96

0.296760322

TOHOKU UNIV

97

0.295300367

CARLETON UNIV

98

0.295136538

UNIV FLORIDA

99

0.294438963

NANJING UNIV

100