EIRP Proceedings, Vol 10 (2015)

The Impact of International Accreditation and Rankings on the Transformation of Higher Education System in RF

Sergey Zapryagaev¹

Abstract: The problem of quality of modern higher education is the subject of research in the public academic and administrative environments. Accreditation and rating are considered as the tools to assess national systems of higher education. In this case, the rating associated usually with superlative characteristic, but the accreditation meets only the minimum requirements. In this paper the impact of these tools discusses on the example of Russian universities. The conclusion of the work is the assertion of the need to develop a new form of quality accreditation in the form of international accreditation. International accreditation allows universities to achieve superlative quality based on a set of estimated parameters, as opposed to an integrated, faceless rankings parameter.

Keywords: quality assurance; educational institution; performance

1. Introduction

Traditionally, the national systems of higher education have their own procedures and criteria for licensing and accreditation of educational activities. Typically, these criteria reflect the accumulated traditions in higher education (HE). These criteria reflect the national view to the conceptual tools and technologies implementing the necessary procedures. At the same time, there are the education systems, that only recently were addressed to the licensing and other methods of assessing of the educational institution performance. The processes of globalization have led to the emergence of the new mechanisms to get right the educational activities and to the assess quality of educational process. Determination of funding priorities have an incentive process for certain areas of education on the base of external value.

Various forms of accreditation and rating have become as real prioritization process in many countries. These processes determine the new forms of activity in universities. Universities are investing financial resources to ensure work in these areas. These financial resources do not support the educational process or the research directly. The problem of the finance optimization must be solved to ensure all aspects of activity are supported. Typically, the university is not able to cover fully all the costs due to the absence of adequate financial resources. Finding a balance is based on the understanding of the role and the cost of accreditation or rating. Obviously, the burden of these activities falls, primarily at consumers of education, universities, and to a lesser extent at the state. In this regard, the universities have, obviously, a question about the effectiveness inside these areas.

As a rule, accreditation is carried out by independent public institutions in the world. However, in some countries, accreditation is highly regulated by the state. In most countries, along with independent institutions for accreditation there are the state institutions for licensing and accreditation (and institution can’t refuse from it). The independent institutions have the professional, social, vocational and other forms of social organization. These institutions offer additional services for the evaluation of the results of operations or rank universities on the basis of some of the declared (or not declared) procedures. The use of these additional forms of external assessment is the subject of discussion in the academic environment for modern universities.

2. Quality in Higher Education

A number of factors determine the attractiveness of higher education programs in the market conditions. The attractiveness of the program provides effective involvement of the learner. Universities are fighting for the student body in the face of international (or internal) competition. Presentation of the significant characteristics for them is one of the ways to attract the attention of students and other stakeholders. These characteristics must be understood at the household level. These characteristics include: the quality of education, the possibility of acquiring an internationally recognized qualification, the prospect of career and professional growth within the areas of education, institutional university status, safety, etc. The most significant characteristic (by statistics) is considered the least measurable factor - the quality of education. Although the concept of “quality education” is commonly used widely, but it is still quite uncertain. The question is, what exactly meant by the term “quality education”.

Attempts to somehow define “quality” in education have not led to the emergence of a common understanding. Various options are not satisfied all stakeholders, including the academic. In this case, there is a large number of options based on business models for technology and other methods. For example, some of them can be summarized as follows:

• quality - is a compliance;

• quality - is the equivalent to the all necessary technical requirements as defined in the working drawings, specifications and other similar documents;

• quality - is a characteristic of the buyer; the buyer wants to have a product or service that satisfy his needs during their lifetime and expectations of the corresponding values;

• quality - is no discrepancies.

The meaning of the concept of “quality” indirectly relies on the ability to compare with the “sample” or subjective expectations in the above examples. What is the example in higher education? The national institutes of educational management believe that it may be some standards of the educational process and standards of the content and scope of education. Professional societies believe that the quality of education should be confirmed by the demonstration of professional skills. Public organizations are guided by the examples of the “best practices”, etc. As a result, there are national traditions and concepts of this category, although there is no universally accepted definition of quality in higher education. These views are different significantly in national systems. However, the general opinion is that even if we are not able to accurately determine the “quality”, we almost always can recognize it intuitively when we “see” it.

It's funny to note that higher education attends to the quality of education especially in the last two, maximum three decades. In this sense, the previous periods of the system of higher education are like outside of suspicions about the possibility of providing low-quality results. What did fuel the interest in the issue of quality? The system of mass higher education is the cause of much of the increased interest in the quality of modern higher education. Indeed, the modern system of higher education displays the rapid growth of the number of students without adequate growth of material, financial, informational, technological and human resource base of higher education. Since 1990, the number of students has increased from 70 million to more than 150 million of students. Accordingly, the growth was recorded in Europe from 19 to 34 million. Students in North America are from 15 to more than 22 million. In this two-fold increase of students the growth of infrastructure, human resources, etc. are not observed. Under these conditions, the interest in evaluating the performance of universities inevitably turned to the analysis of the quality of HE and the results achieved.

Analysis of the quality demanded to have the tools to “measure” and “comparison” of immeasurable concepts. The field for measurement includes about 25,000 institutions of higher education and more than a few millions of educational programs worldwide. As can be seen the number of objects to measure are an extremely large. This fact inevitably involves a large number of applicants wishing to conduct assessments and a variety of forms. It is known that the European approach to quality assurance is based on the principle that quality is the responsibility of the University. (Zapryagaev, & Karavaeva, 2014) Consequently, the university itself should provide the forms for the submission of evidence of quality education and achieve competitive advantages in the country or in the world educational market. The modern ways to achieve these goals are: the internal quality assurance system, various forms of accreditation and licensing, participation in the rating, and other non-standard forms of external evaluation in the form of the formation of professional associations or other unions.

In the RF, the overall structure of the forces that affect to the quality can be demonstrated by the diagram (figure 1). The university is the central unit in the quality assurance system. University creates own internal quality assurance system. The University determines, designs and supports the operation of such a system. The samples of business or examples of other universities are common examples for a particular university. The choice of model or design is based mainly on the intuition of university management. As a result, the spectrum of a particular implementation is quite wide, and is not universal. ISO system gives some universal format. However, in all cases, the internal quality assurance system has a chance to meet internal rejection in an academic environment due to the growth of bureaucracy. The reason for academic rejection is based in inherent contradiction between the creative nature of educational activities and a simplified (or refined) template for its evaluation.

Figure 1. The structure of the forces that affect to the quality in RF University.

As can be seen from pic.1 the state defines certain minimum standards to be eligible to organize and conduct educational activities in the field of higher education (licensing). The check of minimum standards compliance is the accreditation. Frequency of accreditation in Russia is generally once in five years. However, such model of state quality check was found as insufficient. The qualifications that are acquired in different universities is significantly different in the same programs and in the same state requirements. This fact has led to the division of Russian universities into the some groups. On a competitive basis the group of “leading universities” has been allocated. Leading universities have the right to issue their own diploma sample. The remaining universities should issue diplomas of prescribed form. In prior years the form of uniform state diploma was used in HE system, regardless of the university. Thus, the state provided consumer the information about the quality of education on the basis of inner state ranking.

In the recent years the RF has introduced an additional annual collection of data on the activities of the universities. This process is called “monitoring”. Data collection aims to improve state regulation in higher education. Data collection allows to include university in a group of 'effective' or 'ineffective'. University or program of effective group have no claims from the state. University of inefficient group to be closed or reformed. As a result, dozens of universities and branches were merged or reformed in the higher education system of the Russian Federation during 2012- 2014 years. This annual monitoring significantly added the organizational work within universities and indirectly affected to the quality of education and to the requirements of the state accreditation. However, traditionally, the state accreditation is regarded as minimum set of announced requirements to the educational program.

In addition to direct control of the universities by the Ministry of Education, there is an additional control and influencing to the quality of educational services and the implementation of legislation from many inspection agencies. It is financial authorities and authorities for control of infrastructure, security, internal ecology, etc. (figure 1). In short, the whole spectrum of University activities has entangled by structures indirectly related to the maintenance of the different sides and definitions of quality. Of course, the interaction with all of these organizations distracts to significant financial and intellectual resources of the university from education and research. Finding a balance between the financial costs of the university among the all parties of its direct and indirect activities - is an art of management. The balance of the costs between accreditation and ranking is one of the necessary conditions for determining the strategic using of financial resources to maintain the quality.

3. Traditional Accreditation

It is obvious that the university is interested in ensuring positive indicators for “dimension” to compare the quality of academic programs and institutional activities. Indicators must to demonstrate competitiveness of university. The university, the state, society, professional community, business, initiative groups all of them are the actors that involved in the generation of indicators and “comparison”. Accreditation (in all its forms) is a concrete manifestation of the stated methodology. The meaning of the accreditation is to provide confidence in the institution or in the program as a result of expert research and publicly to declare of their reliability. The purposes and functions of accreditation are:

• confirmation of compliance with the announced criteria;

• assistance to stakeholders;

• ensuring conditions for investment;

• protection from external pressure;

• definition of the objectives for development;

• quality assurance;

• ensuring trust.

Forms of accreditation (state or independent, program or institutional) are defined at the national level. In Russia legally recognized only state program accreditation. This accreditation is based on a comparison of the activities of the educational program with document the “federal standard” by name (figure 2). The RF law provides the organization other types of accreditation too (the professional-public and the public), but their legal status is not defined (Zapryagaev & Karavaeva, 2014).

The accreditation can allow to the Russian university:

• to strengthen the reputation and attractiveness of the program;

• to attract the attention of the employer to the program that helps address the problem of employment of graduates of the program;

• to expand opportunities for mobility of students and faculty;

• ensure effective acquaintance with samples of best practice in all components of the program

• provide a competitive advantage when taking;

• to attract sponsorship funds to achieve the targets of work;

• to serve as a basis for the protection of the program in the implementation of inter-disciplinary or “non-core” programs;

• to ensure programs of universities, having the right to form independent (outside State Federal Standards) and non-state accreditation of programs (for group of leading universities of RF).

However, in practice the state accreditation of RF can’t provide a competitive advantage in the global market of educational services. As a rule, in other countries, national systems do not have the task of ensuring global competitive advantage too. In this regard, a number of countries are resorting to professional and international forms of external evaluation. Other forms of assessment are designed to solve this problem in RF also. For example, non-governmental public institution or professional community can do it. They can be implemented in the RF, but the process does not develop.

Figure 2. The types of accreditation in the Russian Federation

What does prevent the formation of the Institute of professional-public or public accreditation in RF? According to the law the state program accreditation is mandatory for universities in Russia. There are no state institutional accreditations in the RF. Institutional accreditation is only possible within the framework of mythical public accreditation. All educational programs (except new ones) are accredited but diplomas and skills of graduates are different. The reason of distinction is the minimum of requirements in traditional accreditation. Professional accreditation is an additional form to support universities in quality assurance. However, the professional association of employers are not very interested in expanding its influence in the higher education system, as it is the additional costs for them.

The reasons for which the effective forms of independent accreditation in Russia are absent may be these:

• lack of financial resources at the university;

• a high level of internal evaluation of institution reputation;

• the potential inability to meet the criteria, based on informal assessments of independent experts or international organizations;

• lack of legislative definition of the status of an independent accreditation;

• internationalization and professionalization of criteria for public accreditation;

• high load faculty teaching and research;

• low motivation of academics in the performance of additional procedures related to the self-evaluation program

Apparent threat to the development of professional and public accreditation in Russia can be the fact that the creation of public accreditation initiated “from above” (state), without the clear initiatives “from below” (academic). As a result, it becomes possible occurrence of such business structures, which have the task just to earn by “sale” of a beautiful certificate of accreditation, without the involvement of peer review.

It is known that traditional view to accreditation process is as minimum set of requirements to obtain a certificate. It is clear that the minimum requirements are not consistent with the objective to achieve superlative, that is to achieve the highest quality. On the other hand it is clear that the accrediting agency will not raise the plank for not to lose the customer. In this sense, the presence of a large number of accrediting organizations raises the question of the reliability of these bodies themselves to determine the degree of quality. As a result, in Europe and Asia have formed a network of accrediting agencies working on internationally agreed rules. For example, INQAAHE, CEE Network, ENQA, APQN, EAQAN. Networks bring together national and a small number of independent accrediting agencies of various countries on the basis of agreed principles of quality assessment and quality culture. They formed a network as a tool interstate understanding of the principles of quality assurance. Russia's participation in these networks is not legally defined.

In recent years, the quality assessment model has become popular based on the principles of international accreditation. Such model includes the analysis and evaluation in integrated criteria. These criteria are based on the best practices of national quality assurance systems. For example, by Association of Classical Universities of Russia together with GAUC were developed 14 standards with approximately 250 criteria (Zapryagaev & Karavaeva 2013). From the combination of executed criteria the university can get few (four) levels of accreditation from the base one (minimum) to excellent. These standards and criteria were used in the pilot accreditation process in the top ten universities in Russia. The overall structure of the criteria was combined on samples of the best global practices. For examination were attracted foreign and Russian experts to assess the degree of fulfillment of the criteria in the standards.

It turned out that the implementation of the international requirements set forth to achieve superlative problematic enough, just because of habits to national requirements. But the inner conviction about the high quality of education in these institutions were presented initially. They did not doubt that they can to comply to highest level criteria, but were only at a basic level after expert assessment.

The main achievement of the said pilot project on international accreditation was that universities saw a real opportunity to achieve results of highest level accreditation at the international level. International accreditation displays that this type of accreditation can replace the “stigma” of minimum requirements for accreditation procedures to maximum quality label.

4. Ratings

Participation in the rating there is another modern way to carry out an analysis of universities and academic programs. Ratings developed a technology that is based on the derivation of an integral evaluation of the university or program. The technology is widely used as easy perception and captured the imagination of many different stakeholders. As stakeholders have become the consumers from state governance structures and ending not professionally trained customers. The magic of one digit shifted the real analysis to the second place. The set of structures was created to calculate the ratings. The most famous rating institutions were critically examined in the framework of the European Association of Universities (Rauhvargers, 2011). The group of institutions that were examined by EUA is:

1. Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, China;

2. Times Higher Education World University Ranking, Times Higher Education;

   1. In cooperation with Quacquarelli Symonds until 2009;

   2. In cooperation with Thomson Reuters as of 2010;

3. World Best University Ranking- US News& World Report in cooperation with Quacquarelli Symonds, US;

4. Global Universities Ranking – Reitor, Russia;

5. EU University-Based Research Assessment – AUBR Working Group, European Commission;

6. Leiden Ranking – Leiden University, The Netherlands;

7. Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities – Higher Education Accreditation and Evaluation Council;

8. CHE University Ranking – Center for Higher Education Development/ die Zeit, Germany;

9. CHE Excellence Ranking -Center for Higher Education Development/ die Zeit, Germany;

10. U-Map classification – CHEPS, University of Twente, The Netherands;

11. U-Maltirank ranking – EU funded project;

12. Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD);

13. Webometrics Ranking of World Universities – Cybermetrics lab, Spain.

The EUA European study and numerous subsequent publications have demonstrated clearly the main obvious problems of global rankings. Nevertheless, the process encompasses a growing number of participants. A large number of rating agencies demonstrates the lack of a common view on the outcome of ratings. In addition, the increase in the number of agencies reflect the market process to satisfy heterogeneous tasks to a wide range of consumers. By definition, it is considered that the ratings could

• provide “independent information” about the parameters of quality, effectiveness research and performance of higher education;

• be an indicator of a country's competitiveness (e.g. the number of universities in the “major league”);

• eliminate the traditional formalization of accreditation procedures and their national “limitation”;

• universities should aim at identifying the superlative quality.

Despite the prevalence of ratings and information in various fields of analysis in an academic environment remains the negative view about the results of this technology (as opposed to administrative and management environment). Reasons to reject the ratings were discussed and analyzed many times. Criticism of the technology often indicates the following:

• discrepancy of results for one university that were received by different ratings;

• indirect connection with the educational process;

• ambiguity of the meaning of rating indicators, leading to a distortion of the processed data set;

• inadequate reflection of the existing diversity of the modern university

• combination of diverse indicators in a one value;

• adjustment of universities under the unified frame;

• subjective nature of selection criteria and methodology for determining the weighting coefficients in the formula for calculating the rating value.

However, despite the explicit interpretation problems rating indicators thousands of universities are involved in the process of preparing the data for the various global rankings. Universities support this process by using the financial, material and intellectual resources not directly related to the educational and research activities. Universities of Russia did not remain aloof from this exciting process. However, they got not expected result,. Although it is known that RF is one of the world leaders on the expenditure on higher education. For these purposes, the RF spends 1.8% of GDP (1.2% at the expense of public funds, and 0.6% by private funds). Above this only the US - 2.6% (1% at the expense of public funds, and 1.6% - at the expense of private investment), South Korea - 2.6%, Canada 2.4% - and the Scandinavian countries - about 2 %. However, the effectiveness of these RF investments is not displayed in the global rankings. This fact is the obvious irritation for state education authorities. As a result the administrative pressure is growing on universities . Universities forced to respond to this pressure and take active part in the world rankings with no chance for a decent success.

What is exactly the driving force that causes the Russian universities to participate in the global ranking race? It may be noted several reasons for universities to take part in the process of determining the virtual world leader:

• ambitious leadership idea about the internal system of higher education (as a legacy of the Soviet period in government and in the academic staff of universities);

• implicit administrative influence (perception of the education authorities information on the participation of universities in global rankings) and the connection of results with finances;

• The federal task, (that was announced by the Government) to have a few universities in top places in global rating (two - three out of 1200!); support on a competitive basis some universities by significant federal funding;

• the decision of promotional tasks of the university in the competitive market of educational services, providing PR shares etc.

It is interesting to point out that among these and other reasons it is difficult to find a connection with the characteristics of quality and outcomes of education.

Modesty of results demonstrated by universities of RF in global rankings are not directly linked to the assessment of the quality of higher education. Really, there are a lot of reasons why Russian universities are not in the top leagues. For example, it is obvious that the global rankings produce the “comparison” of disparate world education systems with the educational system of the RF. Incommensurability is defined as the difference between the structural elements as the functional organization of the educational process. The volumes of financing are not quite comparable (even in average). At the same time universities have equivalent tasks to support infrastructure. In addition, in the RF the education and research are doing in different state institutions. The most universities are separated from academic and research institutions. But even integrated university complexes to Academy of Science also can’t reach the necessary place in global rating to be in the “top league”. For example, five different ratings showed low international competitiveness of higher education in Russia, including in the field of scientific research.

Also during the last decade low attractiveness of work at the University of Russia revealed for the most active and enterprising citizens and foreign specialists. Rating results indicates poor international representation of Russian publications in the majority of universities and their lack of full access to information databases and library resources. But the lack of fulfillment by university one of the main functions ( the generation of new knowledge and the creation of breakthrough technologies) may be is the most important reason. The latter circumstance is directly related to the cross-sectoral deadlocks in the legislation of the RF. Russian laws do not allow you to have, for example, a tight integration of fundamental science education with the programs in public health. This fact distinguishes the structure of the Russian university from the world's leading education leaders. The base of universities for innovation during the Soviet period, was an industry research institutes. These institutions were directly related to the educational process. In the Russian educational system, this relations were broken. For two decades (from 1992 to 2011) the number of research organizations in Russia decreased by almost 20% (to 3682); number of industrial organizations with research and design units - by 18% (280). Quantity design offices decreased by 2.4-fold, the number of design organizations - 13 times (to 38) (Questionnaire, 2013).

On the other hand the costs rose in Russian universities on research sharply in recent years. If in 2008 the costs were 28.8 billion of rub, in 2011 costs was 55.1 billion rub. At this time, the costs of universities for research was almost equal cost for research of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The teaching staff of universities has increased over the period from 2000 to 2011 with 279,000 to 356,000 people. The number of researchers in universities increased from 28 thousand to 53 thousand and became equal to the number of researchers in the RAS. During this period, the number of doctors of science in the universities has increased from 30 thousand to 44 thousand people, and the number of candidates of science - from 13 thousand to 18 thousand. However, innovation and technology transfer are not evolved because the system of sectoral institutions was significantly reduced.

Along with the lack of technology transfer some global ratings demonstrate lack of comparability of financial resources in absolute terms. For example, for comparison, Table 1 shows the spending on research and development of some American and Russian universities.

Table 1.

University	2011	2012
Johns Hopkins U.	$2,145,000,000	$2,106,000,000
U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor	$1,279,000,000	$1,323,000,000
Stanford U.	$908,000,000	$903,000,000
Moscow State U. Lomonosov by name. RF	$220,000,000	$350,000.000
Average regional universities of Russia	$27,000,000	$30,000,000

This comparison speaks for itself. Low activity in the publication of scientific studies have documented the international structures and this is another severe problem for Russian universities participating in the global rankings.

So according to the rating SIR SCIMAGO, the majority of Russian universities lag far behind the leading foreign universities and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the number of publications (in English edition). If MSU takes the 105th place in the global list (19520 publications for 2012), the Saint Petersburg State University - 620 th (5481 publication), Novosibirsk State University - 1395-th (2081 publication) (Questionnaire, 2013)

A proportion of Russian highly cited scientists from different departments for comparison are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Institution	highly cited scientists
All Universities of RF (without of Moscow State University. Lomonosov by name)	596
Moscow State University. Lomonosov by name	565
RAS	2828
Russian Academy of Medicine Science	65
Other institutions	450

That is all the 1200 Russian universities produce scientific production in the form of publications almost four times less than pure research organizations, although the number of staff is equally. However, the problem of relatively weak activity with publications is directly linked not only with the financing, but also with the organization of the whole complex process of education at the university. In comparison with foreign universities that are demonstrating high results in the rankings, academic load Russian teachers at times more and takes most of the time. At the same time the problem of inadequate wages in higher education is not conducive to scientific and methodical activity of teachers.

For reference, the average salary in 2013 was in Moscow, about 54 thousand rubles a month (about $ 1,500). For scientists it was one-third lower - only 36 thousand. rub ($ 1,000). The school teachers (58 thousand rub.), doctors (57 thousand rub), teachers of secondary technical schools (47 thousand. Rubles), university professors (43 thousand rub). In regions of RF, the average salary in 2013 was about 25 thousand rub ($ 900). While in accordance with international wage level researchers that is in 1.5-2 times higher than average. Without this, it is considered impossible to return the prestige of research work and to attract talented young people. Table 3 shows the comparison of salaries by category in universities in the US and Russia (this estimates are not official data for RF) according to the average salary of 2013-2014 (per year) (Questionnaire, 2013).

Table 3.

Academic rank	Doctoral U.	Master’s U	Moscow U.	RF U. (region)
Professor	$138,472	$99,933	$19,636	$10,909
Associate professor	$90,447	$74,647	$14,545	$7,960
Assistant professor	$78,797	$63,655	$11,320	$6,200
Instructor	$52,237	$48,069	$7,100	$3,640

It is known that the competitiveness of higher education can be confirmed by the number of foreign students who come to the country for higher education. Table 4 shows the countries with the highest number of foreign students in comparison with Russia (Questionnaire, 2013).

Table 4

Country	2011 total international students	2011 total international students	Top places of origin
US	746,495	819,644	China, India,S.Korea
Britain	480,755	488,380	China, India, US
China	292,611	328,330	S.Korea, US, Japan
France	284,945	289,274	Moroco,China, Algeria
Germany	252,032	265,292	Turkey,China, RF
Australia	242,351	245,531	China, Malaysia,India
Canada	193,647	214,955	China, S.Korea, India
Japan	138,075	137,756	China, S.Korea, Taiwan
RF	108,700	118,700	CIS, China, India

Table 5 shows some of the leading Russian universities with the largest number of foreign students in full-time education in the 2008/2009 -2010 / 2011's. (Questionnaire, 2013)

Table 5.

University	Years
	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
1. Peoples' Friendship University of Russia	5353	5324	8221
2. Moscow State University. Lomonosov by name	5776	4187	3512
3. Saint Petersburg State University	3751	3626	3431
4. Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University	2402	2254	2297
5. Moscow Medical Academy. I.M. Sechenov by name	2335	2123	2216
6. State Institute of Russian Language. A.S. Pushkin by name	3708	2349	2001
8. Smolensk State Medical Academy	1227	1345	1391
9. Russian State Medical University	1042	1187	1286
10. Moscow Aviation Institute (Technical University)	945	973	1277

Although formal indicators on number foreign students to the Russian Federation look relatively favorable structure of students but their sources of funding almost inverted in relation to the leaders. In terms of the number of students, interns, graduate students, doctoral students, etc. full-time students in the 2010/2011 academic year in RF were the following leaders Kazakhstan (16,616 people.), China (16,486 people.), Turkmenistan (5297 pers.), Ukraine (4919 pers.), India (4515 pers.), Belarus (4229 people.), Azerbaijan (4166 pers.), Vietnam (3628 pers.), Tajikistan (3556 pers.), (Uzbekistan (3466 pers.). Earlier (in 2005 / 2006-2009 / 2010), countries with the highest number of students to daytime divisions of Russian universities were invariably China, Kazakhstan and India. It is interesting that none of the universities in Table 5 is not represented in the world top league of universities.

The above examples of some statistics indicate that the information on the integral rating of university is not enough characteristic to determine the quality of the processes. The national interpretation of rating is usually different from the international interpretation of the values in global rankings. The above examples demonstrate that RF universities participate in the process in which the comparison of disparate systems is made. Thus, the need to participate in the global rankings, even forgetting that they do not indicate the direction of excellence is the subject of debate.

5. Conclusions

Analysis of the impact of the procedures external evaluation of universities demonstrates the superiority of accreditation procedures in the processes of structural and substantial transformations of the modern university in comparison with rating. Accreditation is the process to determine the differential evaluation of the university on the entire range of its activities and to establish development strategy to achieve excellence.

Widespread using rating, which is already covered a wide range of institutions is nothing more than a business project. This business project arises naturally in market conditions. Association of rating as the business activity is more true than to the tool of analysis. The base for such conclusion is the wide occurrence of subsidiaries institutions linked to the rating procedures. Among such institutions are most clearly manifested numerous false structures that produce at reasonable cost “scientific” publications in international “journals” in all areas of research. In addition there are a large number of proposals for international scientific conferences, and again in all scientific fields. Pay the fee and you will be provided with publication. Not without political manifestations too. For example, in many cases the European scientific journals reject submissions without review scientific articles.

Financial analysis shows that the costs that must be held with the participation of the university in the global rankings are not adequate to the tasks of universities that support mass higher education. Meaningful participation in the process, for various reasons can be justified only for the universities of “top league.” That can be estimated in about 100 institutions around the world ( is less than 0.4% of their numbers 25,000). Of course in the presence of nearly 200 countries in the world, the leading world states want to prove their worth via the presence of representatives of their higher education institutions in “top league.” But at the same time, they must have an adequate system of financial, infrastructure, information and human conditions to assess the opportunity to participate in this business game. Regarding the use of global ratings at the national level, it looks more like the desire for self-satisfaction management at various levels and has nothing to do with the concept of quality. In some cases, ratings serve as a “safety cushion” for the administrator to make the decision on the allocation of financial resources. However, unambiguous and serious conclusion (decision) that taken on the basis of rating indicators can be seen only in the nonprofessional environment.

In conclusion, can be made the conclusion that there is no direct need for all universities of Russia to spend time and resources on rating processes to see that the university is related to a group of 700+ or 1200+ etc. At the same time with no real indicators that point to areas of improvement to achieve excellence. The more that 200-300 (or even more) neighbors have microscopic difference in the third or fourth sign. What conclusion can be drawn from the value obtained is not clear for university management, and for “spectator”. There is a feeling that, in general, universities act as backup dancers in ballet. Which universities are satisfied with such a wonderful role - is difficult to answer. However, the growth of administrative requirements in relation to teachers as a source of primary data to gather information while participating in the ranking of really turns into a source of increasing tension in the academic environment.

Often the rating is declared as an attempt to fix the shortcomings of traditional accreditation in connection with the statement that accreditation is only the satisfaction of a minimum set of criteria that does not specify the pursuit of superlatives. This simplified representation of accreditation entirely can be corrected by professional or international accreditation. Multi-level international accreditation is the adequate development of modern forms and procedures for evaluating the quality and “confidence” of stakeholders to the complex aspects of the activities of the university.

6. References

Questionnaire (2013). State of the science in Russia in detail. http://voprosik.net/sostoyanie-nauki-v-rossii-podrobno/.

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