Group Endorses Principles for Ranking Universities.

The article reports that an international group of educators, higher-education experts, and publishers that met in Berlin, Germany, last month has come up with a set of principles for ranking colleges and universities known as "Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions." These principles are a response to the explosion of college rankings in many countries since "U.S. News" and "World Report" published the first such listings in 1983. College rankings, or league tables, as they are known in Great Britain, were at first widely dismissed in academe, but they appear to be popular with students and their parents. The Berlin principles are meant to serve as voluntary guidelines for groups that produce rankings. In a statement accompanying the list of principles, the group wrote that the purpose of the guidelines was to ensure that "those producing rankings and league tables hold themselves accountable for quality in their own data collection, methodology, and dissemination."