“We are drowning in information and starving for
knowledge.” Rutherford D. Rogers
The increasing availability of large integrated databases and access to the information ("big data") created a data-rich environment. New measures/indicators regularly emerge, making room for innovative solutions, such as combining these measures/indicators to represent concepts not yet quantified - composite indicators (CIs).In addition, prioritizing the available information helps businesses and governments make more targeted data-driven decisions using rule-based and statistical methods. Ranking is one way to summarize the data to attain an initial decision on where to focus resources and time -CIs are often used in such cases. It is worth emphasizing as stated by Michaela Saisana that “All things considered, composite indicators should be identified for what they are - simplistic presentations and comparisons of performance in given areas to be used as starting points for further analysis and discussion.”
Some examples of ranking include:
➢ Ranking of K-12 students in a school by their height;
➢ Ranking institutions of higher education by their overall performance;
➢ Ranking countries by their Human Development Index;
➢ Ranking countries by the opacity of their financial institutions - the Financial Secrecy Index.