TALKING POINTS BY PROF. LUCY IRUNGU ; VICE-CHANCELLOR, MACHAKOS UNIVERSITY
DURING THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF STAFF TRAINING ON WEBSITES, PUBLICATIONS, CITATIONS, THE WEB OF SCIENCE AND THEIR IMPACT IN RANKING OF UNIVERSITIES
All protocols observed,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good Morning!
Importance of University ranking
Today allow me to talk about the general importance of university rankings, the web-based ranking popularly known as webometrics ranking and the other alternative ranking resources and their ranking criteria.
It is beyond doubt that rankings have become a significant part of the tertiary education landscape, both globally and locally. A university is a high-level educational institution in which students from around the globe can study for degrees and do global academic research. This means Universities are universal institutions of Higher learning and thus their rankings without doubt now play a big role in shaping the opinions of current and potential students, parents, employers, and governments about the quality of tertiary education institutions.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I wish therefore to emphasize to all of us the importance of university ranking
as follows:
Ranking often serves as a formal accreditation system in countries where such accountability measures do not exist.
Prompts changes in areas that directly improve student learning experience
Encourages institutions to move beyond their internal conversations to participate in broader national and international discussions
Foster collaboration in research partnerships, student and faculty exchange programmes
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The original aim of the Webometrics Ranking is to promote academic web presence, supporting the Open Access initiatives for increasing significantly the transfer of scientific and cultural knowledge generated by the universities to the whole Society. In order to achieve this objective, the publication of rankings is one of the most powerful and successful tools for starting and consolidating the processes of change in the academia, increasing the scholars’ commitment and setting up badly needed long term strategies.
Criteria of Webometrics Ranking
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of Universities, is a ranking system for the world’s universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web contents (number of web pages and files) and the visibility and impact of these web publications according to the number of external in-links (site citations) they received. These Web indicators are considered as proxies in the correct, comprehensive, deep evaluation of the university global performance, taking into account its activities and outputs and their relevance and impact. The ranking is published by the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) located in Madrid. The ranking started in 2004 and is updated every January and July. Today it provides Web indicators for more than 12,000 universities worldwide.
Other ranking Resources
Ladies and Gentlemen
There are several ranking resources around the world. Either they are international or national or web based. Our concerns are mainly international ranking resources -because we are to internationalize Machakos University, national ranking resources – because we have to compete in our country and web based ranking resources – because ranking criteria is mainly based on our website interactions. Again, let me just mention the following international ranking resources below:
Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking Consultancy)
THE World University Rankings (Times Higher Education)
QS World University Rankings (Quacquarelli Symonds)
Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities (Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan)
Ranking Web of World Universities (Cybermetrics Lab (CCHS), a unit of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC))
CHE-Excellence Ranking (Center for Higher Education)
UTD Top 100 Business School Research Rankings (The UT Dallas’ School of Management)( The University of Texas at Dallas-UTD)
Ranking Criteria
I wish to briefly give you ranking criteria for few but very important ranking resources that use different tools to rank universities.
QS World University Rankings
Academic reputation based on a global survey of academics – 40 percent;
Employer reputation based on a global survey of graduate employers – 10 percent;
Faculty/student ratio – 20 percent;
Citations per faculty – 20 percent;
International student ratio – 5 percent;
International staff ratio – 5 percent
Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings
Teaching (the learning environment) – 30 percent;
Research (volume, income and reputation) – 30 percent;
Citations (research influence) – 30 percent;
International outlook (staff, students and research) – 7.5 percent;
Industry income (knowledge transfer) – 2.5 percent
Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking)
| Quality of Education | 10% |
| Quality of Faculty | 40% |
| Research Output | 40% |
| Per Capita Performance | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
Way Forward,
Machakos University will never become a competitive center of excellence in teaching, research, innovation and service if it is not ranked among the best universities. I call upon you, ladies and gentlemen to commit yourselves towards fully understanding and implementing the dynamics of the university ranking and their implications for a competitive university, which is why we are gathered here today.
With those few remarks, therefore, I declare this training officially open.
Thank you.