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 |