On September 23 MEPhI has held a seminar “World fame of Russian universities in the Internet space fr om the Webometrics point of view”, which was organized by the University together with the Project office 5-100.

The event was particularly important for higher education institutions aspiring to global leadership, and was attended by representatives of leading Russian universities: vice-rectors responsible for strategic development, administrators and managers of project offices, employees of PR-services and digital libraries, content managers of University’s English web sites.

Deputy Executive Director of the Project office Nadezhda Polikhina spoke about the use of the Webometrics ranking in success evaluation of the international promotion of universities, and touched on peculiarities of methods of indicators’ calculation. She noted that universities-participants of the Project 5-100 had included this rating in its programs of competitiveness increase as additional parameters of quality performance.

Ivan Sterligov, the head of Analytical Department of the HSE Management of Academic Expertise told more about scientometric component of the Webometrics ranking. In particular, he talked about specifics and peculiarities of one of the key indicators “Excellence”, which measures the number of University’s publications included in the 10% of the most cited works in particular field for the last 5 years through the Scopus database.

Then the floor was given to the MEPhI Vice-rector Vladimir Uzhva. He shared experience of University promotion in Webometrics, showing the dynamic of University’s performance in this rating since July 2013. MEPhI has consistently held high positions, and according to the latest data is on the 4th place among Russian universities (or second among the universities participating in the Project 5-100).

Continuing the theme, representatives of leading universities of Russia shared their experience in Webometrics. During the discussion, participants identified a number of questions to the representatives of the rating about methods of calculating indicators. And this opportunity was provided to them, because everyone was able to ask questions directly to the head of the research group Cybermetrics Lab (Webometrics) Isidro F Aguillo.

In his speech, Isidro Aguillo spoke about principles and methodology of work of his organization, about changes that occured there, and also gave some practical advices on improvement of activities of educational institutions whose representatives were at the event that day.

The Cybermetrics Lab is engaged in quantitative analysis of the Internet and web content, focusing on generation of scientific knowledge and scholarly communication. In this case Isidro Aguillo drew particular attention to the fact that Webometrics ranks not websites of universities but educational institutions. All extensive activity of Webometrics is focused on the development of so-called initiatives of open access, so that everyone can enjoy high-quality scientific results all over the world.

After the presentation, Isidro Aguillo held a practical seminar wh ere he showed the work of various technological platforms, used in the Webometrics ranking as well, on the example of Russian universities.