Clara Said:

Is there a ranking of independent universities in the UK?

We Answered:

Information is below.

Claude Said:

find ranking of universities in japan,uk,us,and other European countries?

We Answered:

As a computer scientist you should know how to search the web :-)
And I protest: Neither Japan not US are European countries - as your question implied.

Kidding aside:
I am not aware of any ranking of all European universities.
If you are looking in Europe you will have to check within each country that might make your list. Since you are talking PhD you will not be expected to accept the local language as only education language. But I encourage you to contact each university that makes it on to your list just to make sure that they will have no issues with you command of the local language.

In German speaking countries the top three universities for PhD studies in Computer Science are Uni. Karlsruhe, TU Munich/Garching, and ETH Zuerich in Switzerland.
In the US still MIT, Standford, and Berkeley are the top three. For UK and Japan I have to pass.

Penny Said:

How do you think the Open university(UK) ranks with other universities in the UK?

We Answered:

higher

Joy Said:

the best UK university ranking to follow?

We Answered:

Well, you should not use the ranking in it's raw form anyway. All rankings are crude attempts to rate individual universties and individual departments, but are based on data from published sources. Where the different league tables differ is in the entirely subjective choices that the compilers have made as to which published data to use and what weighting to assign to those metrics to arrive at the overall ranking. If you want the league tables to be a significant part of your decision making, then you should look at how the compilers decided to create the rankings and decided whether that is in tune with your own priorities.

For example, the Times Good University Guide uses a smaller number of metrics when ranking departments (from memory: Research Assessment Exercise rating, percentage of positive response across all questions in the National Student Survey, average UCAS entry tariffs, career prospects) than the Guardian (from memory: student:staff ratio; National Student Survey satisfaction with teaching; National Student Survey satisfaction with feedback; average UCAS entry tariff; non-pay spend per student; career prospects). You'll need to dig in to the background of each league table for the details. Some metrics are debatable. Does the Research Assessment Exercise rating really indicate higher calibre staff and greater resources for teaching or not? Does relatively low student satisfaction indicate a poorly performing department or students with high expectations? The Times also uses an older data set, but does I believe expend more effort in checking that data, than does the Guardian. On balance, I would say for general purposes that the Guardian one is based on richer data and is more up to date, but the Times one is more robust.