Will Digital Scholarship be Reflected in the New World University Rankings?

In what looks like quite a lazily produced article (isn’t cut and paste wonderful?;-), Firm foundations for global comparisons, the THES has reported that Thomson Reuters are to start working on a new global database to underpin international university ranking tables.

An Open Letter to Administrators from Thomson Reuters states:

Our aim with the GLOBAL INSTITUTIONAL PROFILES PROJECT [no need to SHOUT;-) – Ed.] … is to develop a data source that provides the best informed and most effective resource to build profiles of universities and research-based institutions around the world.

As someone “quoted” in the THES article Thomson Reuters press release put it:

“There is a need for robust, dynamic, and above all transparent and verifiable data on scholarly performance to reshape how administrators approach institutional comparisons.”

So, I wonder… are the new rankings going to include factors at an institutional level that reflect on the digital scholarly activity of a university, such as the blogging activity of its researchers (JISC projects increasingly expect project blogs to report regularly on project activity, for example), or things like traffic numbers for institutional Youtube or iTunes channels?

And will the rankings reflect teaching and student support activity, as well as research? Will having vibrant online communities or institution related Facebook apps with thousands of installs be recognised (not that anyone liked Course Profiles, though that’s presumably because we didn’t have a budget holder spend a huge amount on it and then have to chase internal glory payback to justify the expense…;-), or its engagement with publishing others form of open educational resources (OERs)?

If you want to participate in the GIPP (isn’t that slang for vomit? Or maybe that’s gip..?;-), you may be able to find a way here: GIPP; after all, they do say:

Researcher engagement is critical to ensuring this new initiative delivers what the industry has long been asking for—an accurate representation of the institutional landscape, from the source. … [T]he need for researcher participation and completed surveys remains constant.

PS Martin – has any of your digital scholarship (prezi seasick…bleurghhh) work considered metrics at the institutional level, as well as the personal level?