S. Korea's Chung-Ang University cut from QS rankings for data manipulation
South Korea’s Chung-Ang University has been removed from an international QS university ranking assessment for 2018 for data manipulation. / Korea Times file
By Lee Han-soo
South Korea’s Chung-Ang University has been removed from an international QS university ranking assessment for 2018 for data manipulation.
The Seoul-based school admitted to the manipulation and apologized, but claimed it was done solely by a misguided employee assisting the evaluation, not an organized scheme involving the school’s decision-makers. The school did not disclose detailed information about the employee.
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a world-renowned university ranking company, said the school will be reinstated for the 2019 edition if “no further irregularities occur.”
According to the QS website, the company discovered a “substantial number of anomalous responses” lodged in favor of Chung-Ang during routine screening of surveys. The survey results were said to be an important factor for evaluation.
“We contacted the university to discover that they were as surprised as we were,” the company wrote on its website. “To their great credit, they have cooperated fully with our investigation into the matter and with their help we have been able to identify that an unsanctioned undertaking to lodge a large number of false responses in favor of their university had originated from their campus.”
The school apologized to QS and its students.
“The employee was found to have committed the manipulation to put the school in a higher position,” the school said. “We will do everything we can to prevent a similar thing from happening again.”
Chung-Ang ranked 386th in QS’s 2017 edition, which evaluated 916 universities around the world.