[news] DCU named 'Sunday Times University of the Year 2010'

Bluetonic

DCU named 'Sunday Times University of the Year 2010'

17 September 2010
Dublin City University has been named the 2010 Sunday Times University of the Year. This is the second time in the eight-year history of the Sunday Times University Guide that DCU has received the award; the first was in 2004. The Sunday Times cited the university's 48% increase in research income last year, the success of its 20-year old Access programme and strong student satisfaction as just three of the reasons for this year's award The decision was also strongly influenced by an international independent quality review carried out by the Irish University Quality Board which found that DCU "can fairly claim to be at the cutting edge in terms of academic quality improvement".

Speaking on the award, DCU President, Professor Brian MacCraith, said, "We are delighted that the university's achievements have been recognised through this award. DCU, as one of Ireland's youngest universities, has clearly established a strong reputation for the quality of its academic teaching and its cutting edge research activity, its holistic approach to the student experience, and its far-sighted policies on social inclusion. Moving on into the next phase, the university will continue to develop its policy of engagement through strong industry-academic partnerships, which include collaborations in research projects and its INTRA work placements. "We will continue to emphasise research initiatives whose results will translate into societal benefits in the areas of health, the environment, energy needs and multi-culturalism. One example is DCU's current involvement as the Irish partner in a €20m European -wide project, 'Smart Power Management for Home and Health', which aims to improve electricity efficiency in the home and the workplace by reducing CO2 emissions in the generation of electricity. Another example is DCU's Centre for Image Processing and Analysis (CIPA) which has developed an image-based medical diagnostic device which will assist in the early detection and treatment of colon cancer". "DCU has undertaken a number of new initiatives over the last year to improve the student experience for first year students.

These supports enable DCU students, and subsequently graduates, to reach their full potential as citizens in society", he said. Speaking on the achievements of DCU's Access programme, Orla Conlan, Access Officer, said, "We have worked with enthusiasm and commitment since 1990 to encourage non-traditional students to apply for and also to complete third-level education. We are delighted not just by the increase in Access student numbers, but by the number who achieve first class honours. This figure now equals that of the general undergraduate population, which supports our long-held belief that they have the same potential as students who enter through traditional routes. In addition to these successes, 57% of our Access graduates undertake further study, and of the remainder, 98% are successful in gaining employment". DCU's Access programme, which is celebrating its 20th birthday this year, is one of the largest Access programmes of its kind in the country, with over 440 students from all over Ireland registered on its undergraduate programmes.

The Access service works with over 6,000 primary and secondary school students in a range of pre-entry programmes. Its aim is to encourage students, who have no family tradition of going on to third-level education, to consider going to university as an option. The university intends expanding its Access intake to 25% of student intake in 2011. In line with the university's commitment to introduce innovative degree programmes which are relevant to the needs of Irish society, DCU has introduced three new degree programmes this year, including a BSc in Aviation Management with Pilot Studies. This programme has been designed for those who are considering entering the aviation industry, either as a commercial pilot or as a business professional, and will provide a thorough grounding in all aspects of the airline business including tourism, logistics and international trade. The course fulfils the industry's need for personnel with an appreciation of the diverse activities of a complex and transnational industry. This September, students will also enrol for the first time on the new BSc in Psychology and BA in International Business and Languages for non-native English speakers only. DCU's other achievements were named as winning Sports Centre of the Year in 2009 and the announcement of a €1m seed venture fund for early stage technology start-up companies.

http://www.dcu.ie/news/2010/sep/s0910f.shtml

johnmcdnl

Does does make us better than trinity :pac:

Pygmalion

johnmcdnl wrote: »

Does does make us better than trinity :pac:

They came second, so yes :P

Noodleworm

I liked DCU better than all other the colleges I saw at open days.
UCD and Trinity may be bigger and older but we're just as good

Pygmalion

Noodleworm wrote: »

UCD and Trinity may be bigger and older but we're just as good

According to the quoted news we're not "just as good", we're better. :pac:

phantom_lord

johnmcdnl wrote: »

Does does make us better than trinity :pac:

Nah don't think so:

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/ucd-joins-trinity-in-world-league-of-top-100-universities-2339324.html

Bluetonic

phantom_lord wrote: »

Nah don't think so:

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/ucd-joins-trinity-in-world-league-of-top-100-universities-2339324.html

DCU is never going to rank too highly in those ratings first of all due to it's age. This coupled with the lack of courses in some academic areas along with the rankings being geared towards big universities, of which DCU is not, make it near on impossible for it to compete with other universities worldwide, or some domestically, to climb the rankings.

DCU is neither a big, nor a general university, therefore I'd ignore those rankings to some degree.

Back to the domestic front I see one of the winners of the Your Country Your Call is an ex DCU Business School graduate.

Pygmalion

phantom_lord wrote: »

Nah don't think so:

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/ucd-joins-trinity-in-world-league-of-top-100-universities-2339324.html

I'm wondering what effects the Access program and other services have on the rankings though (if any).
I mean the OPs quote mentions that Access students are now on par with the general undergraduate population in terms of firsts, and strongly implies that this (as well as research) is one of the main reasons it got the award.
This is of course an incredible achievement for the university, one which not much other universities could claim, but if the rankings look purely at results and don't take into account the students' backgrounds or difficulties that the university accommodates for then it won't show up at all in the rankings, and in fact might actually have been holding DCU back in the past.

I'm not saying DCU would be top 100 were it not for this of course, I don't think it would (a few reasons, the age of it and the variety of courses on offer being big ones), just that some of the things it does well could be overlooked.
Also for all I know the rankings do take these kinds of things into account, but tbh I'd be surprised.

argonaut

This has alleviated my academic inferiority complex.


:pac:

Einstein?

phantom_lord wrote: »

Nah don't think so:

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/ucd-joins-trinity-in-world-league-of-top-100-universities-2339324.html

You picked the wrong place to spread your propaganda :mad:

Einstein?

Pygmalion wrote: »

I'm wondering what effects the Access program and other services have on the rankings though (if any).
I mean the OPs quote mentions that Access students are now on par with the general undergraduate population in terms of firsts, and strongly implies that this (as well as research) is one of the main reasons it got the award.
This is of course an incredible achievement for the university, one which not much other universities could claim, but if the rankings look purely at results and don't take into account the students' backgrounds or difficulties that the university accommodates for then it won't show up at all in the rankings, and in fact might actually have been holding DCU back in the past.

I'm not saying DCU would be top 100 were it not for this of course, I don't think it would (a few reasons, the age of it and the variety of courses on offer being big ones), just that some of the things it does well could be overlooked.
Also for all I know the rankings do take these kinds of things into account, but tbh I'd be surprised.

No - the ranking system which placed DCU above UCD and Trinity has a respectively high weighed average in the subset of research funding/intra/access/etc, as opposed to other ranking systems which, per say, care less about funding/intra/acess/etc.

stringy

Bluetonic wrote: »

DCU is never going to rank too highly in those ratings first of all due to it's age. This coupled with the lack of courses in some academic areas along with the rankings being geared towards big universities, of which DCU is not, make it near on impossible for it to compete with other universities worldwide, or some domestically, to climb the rankings.

DCU is neither a big, nor a general university, therefore I'd ignore those rankings to some degree.

Back to the domestic front I see one of the winners of the Your Country Your Call is an ex DCU Business School graduate.

Size has nothing to do with it, some of the top ranked unis are similar in size. The rankings take into account historical and current academic achievements in addition to student staff ratios, a huge focus is on research. Therefore DCU cannot compete until it has aged and the government seriously invests in university education, or students start paying huge tuition fees.

But it is a huge achievement, especially since we have now won it twice in the 8 year history of the awards. Graduate employment rates continue to be stronger than other universities, we have happier students, and we pull in far more money in research for our size than other unis. All in all, DCU us great and receiving the recognition it deserves.

Bluetonic

stringy wrote: »

Size has nothing to do with it, some of the top ranked unis are similar in size.

Which ones?

Size effects the rankings. By DCU being a smaller University it's clear that it is harder for it to achieve higher grades in some of the criteria. Surely you can understand that? For example "20% (of the grade) comes from citations, as held by the Scopus database, per member of academic staff". If DCU has less academic staff than a 100k student University, then you would image they will have less academic staff gaining citations. So therefore they will achieve a lower mark.

DCU had 11,000 students last year.

To quote from the ranking authroity

One with 10,000 students is no longer considered large

Also to quote from them.

The QS rankings are designed to measure big, general universities

If they are designed to measure big universities and DCU is not considered a big (large) university then that speaks for itself.

Source

stringy

I'm pretty sure the number of citations is weighted, it's not the actual number of citations, I think that goes for all their ranking methodology.
Harvard came 2nd with 18,000 students, that's hardly big, considering UCD has 25,000 students. MIT came 5th and they have just under 11,000 students.
The main factor against DCU is our youth, but we'll make progress over the next 20 years, when we'll be almost 50 years old.

Bluetonic

stringy wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the number of citations is weighted, it's not the actual number of citations, I think that goes for all their ranking methodology.
Harvard came 2nd with 18,000 students, that's hardly big, considering UCD has 25,000 students. MIT came 5th and they have just under 11,000 students.
The main factor against DCU is our youth, but we'll make progress over the next 20 years, when we'll be almost 50 years old.

Fair enough, they indicate thats it's the number of citations and mention nothing about weighting.

Agree totally with the making progress part.

mehfesto

Bluetonic wrote: »

DCU is never going to rank too highly in those ratings first of all due to it's age. This coupled with the lack of courses in some academic areas along with the rankings being geared towards big universities, of which DCU is not, make it near on impossible for it to compete with other universities worldwide, or some domestically, to climb the rankings.

DCU is neither a big, nor a general university, therefore I'd ignore those rankings to some degree.

Back to the domestic front I see one of the winners of the Your Country Your Call is an ex DCU Business School graduate.

Exactly.

DCU is one of the highest ranked new college in the worldwide list - it's only 30 years old, so we don't have the alumni and experience that others do. There are only 3 higher than us in the world that were founded in the last half century. That we are so high is astonishing.

We don't have medical students either, and when you take the grading into account - missing that faculty - we really are punching way above our weight.