Beyond university rankings ? Generating new indicators on European universities by linking data in open platforms

The need for new indicators on universities is growing as governments and decision makers at all levels are faced with the huge opportunities generated by new knowledge, but at the same time are pressed hard by budget constraints. University rankings are attracting policy and media attention, but at the same time receive harsh methodological criticism. After reviewing the critical literature on rankings, we suggest that a change in the paradigm of design and production of indicators is needed. The traditional approach is one that leverages on existing data but also suggests heavy investment to integrate existing databases and build up tailored indicators. We show how the intelligent integration of existing data may lead to an open linked data platform that permits the construction of new indicators. The power of the approach derives from the ability to combine heterogeneous sources of data in order to derive indicators that address a variety of user needs,without designing the indicators on a custom basis.