The 2004 Guardian rankings are available. These are based on teaching quality for full-time undergraduate students. So they are not much relevant to part-time or postgraduate students. Nevertheless, I was amused to see Lampeter in last place. http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2004/table/0,14557,1222167,00.html?start=00
Hi Good laugh too! However, on a serious point, in the explantion labelled 'science' for the methodology, the compilers reveal that they use data that are ten years old. I cannot comment on the state of undergraduate standards as it is twenty-two years since I taught any undergraduates or had anything to do with an undergraduate department . EBS, for example, is the 'Graduate School of Business of Heriot-Watt University'. I notice in the current internal reports of Heriot-Watt that the three departments or schools on the University that are generating surplus funds are all mainly post-graduate schools and that two of them, which receive public funding for research, are classed as 'excellent' by the publicly funded Research Quality bodies. The University, including EBS, is booked for an inspection soon by the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). I have modestly recommended for 'immediate action' that it closes or severely curtails three of the undergraduate Schools, not on the basis of their quality but on grounds of their annual incredible losses. If, however, future practice follows past experience, these failures will be expanded by more subsidies. In the UK, success is punished and failure is rewarded.
There is an old military expression about reinforcing success not failure. Reinforcing failure could turn a small defeat into a big defeat. Reinforcing success could turn a little victory into a big one. Sometimes it's best to regroup, replan and fight another day. Sometimes unaccountable bureaucracies need to disappear and be recreated from the ground up.
This thread started with the 2004 rankings. Now we've got the 2020 rankings (or at least the methodology) https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jun/07/methodology-behind-the-guardian-university-guide-2020
