In the last days of September, a conference was held in Moscow, where the experts and representatives of the Russian higher education discussed the key issues associated with the implementation of plans, aimed at the realization of improving the competitiveness programs by the universities - winners ("Road maps"). Isidro F. Aguillo, one of the founders of the international Webometrics ranking, was the main speaker.
The arrival of the Spanish specialist Isidro Aguillo (Isidro Aguillo, the head of the Cybermetrics Lab at the Center of Social and Human Sciences (CCHS) of the Spanish National Research council (CSIC), the editor of the Webometrics Rankings) became the main event of the International Workshop «Rankings and enhancement of international competitiveness of Russian universities» seminar, that was held in Moscow from the 29th of September to the 1st of October.
The seminar participants waited eagerly to hear Isidro Aguillo speeches, because he rarely visits Russia, but his every performance becomes an event for professionals involved in the positioning and promotion of high schools in the Internet.
The ranking results for the July 2014, the general trend
The dialogue began with a discussion of the results of the July version of the Webometrics ranking, according to which the ITMO University rose by 414 points thereby entering the top ten universities in Russia and the thousand of the best scientific and educational centers in the world.
Isidro Aguillo noted that there are several factors that negatively affect the representation of the university in the ranking. A change of the name, for example, or schools merger may lead to a temporary biased representation of the university connected with the confusion, that inevitably arises in the process of establishing of a new brand or a reorganization of the university structure. The Spanish expert drew the visitors’ attention to the situation with a Saint Petersburg State University ranking position decrease: it fell from the traditional second-place to the third. This is connected with the fact that the University has two domains, which led to a decrease in the parameters under which the ranking is made.
The discussion participantsalso discussed the possibility of creation or joining of the medical schools in order to improve international competitiveness. Among all the «5-100» program participants the N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod is the only one that has a medical faculty in its composition. According to Isidro Aguillo, it is impossible to get into the world’s top 100 universities without having a medical faculty.It should be noted that despite of the absence of the medical units in the ITMO University,a number of major research projects in the field of medicine are carried out in cooperation or by request of the large medical centers.
Recall that according to the "road map" of the ITMO University, it must enter the 300 best universities of the world Webometrics ranking by the year 2020.
Recommendations
One of the seminar objects was to develop some recommendations for the further steps in the improving the competitiveness of the Russian higher school among the international educational centers program realization. In this context, a group of experts led by Isidro Aguillo expressed clearly: it is necessary not only to develop a strategy for the generation of a large amount of content, but also the algorithm of hosting it on the internet. An important component that shapes the face of the university in the network space is the representation of educational materials in electronic form in the public domain. "We need to convince the teachers not only to read the lecture material in the classrooms, but also to provide some additional lessons accompanying materials online”, Isidro Aguillo said. “Because if the teacher gives you the opportunity to get acquainted with some additional teaching materials, especially if they are placed on his personal web-site,it characterizes him as a professional who is interested in the training of highly qualified specialists".
At the end of his speech, the Spanish specialist again emphasized: maximum content, qualitative content, the international content - these are the basic ingredients which are necessary for the promotion of the university in the global world network. But just to fill the online resource is not enough, you need to force it to "work". "The number of links leading to the content is its qualitative indicator”, Isidro Aguillo emphasized. “It is necessary to create teachers personal pages, reflecting the following information: work abroad experience, awards, professional skills, publications, related knowledge, participation in large international projects, additional learning materials, etc.Personal pages should reflect not only the professional competence of the staff members, but also an educational institution as a whole".
Three days extremely rich with seminars, roundtables and discussions appeared to be extremely useful for the ITMO University.The meeting confirmed the correctness of the promotion in the Webometrics ranking strategy, developed by members of the Department of Information Technology. However, a single unit work is not enough: a collective targeted work of all the staff and students with a common goal is needed. And the goal is toachieve the occurrence of the University in the world's top hundred educational institutions. And this problem is definitely within our reach!