Abstract:

The aim of this research is to evaluate private universities in Turkey with multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods. 72 private universities were evaluated in the study, and the database for these universities was obtained from the Council of Higher Education - Private Universities 2020 report. Criteria used in this study include the foundation date, the number of academic units, total number of students, the number of full-time faculty members, total closed area per student (m2), library space (m2), the number of printed-books and e-books available in the library, as well as, R&D and library expenditures. Initially, criteria were weighted according to AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method, then three different rankings were attained by applying COPRAS (Complex Proportional Assessment), SAW (Simple Additive Weighting) and TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) methods. Finally, these three rankings were combined with the Borda Count method and a single performance ranking was obtained. The methods applied in this study have not been used in the literature in an integrated manner previously and the number of 72 alternatives has not been reached in university comparisons.

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