How NUR improved its international ranking

HUYE – The National University of Rwanda (NUR) has yet again registered improvement in its international ranking, jumping over 240 places worldwide in the latest ‘Webometrics Ranking of World Universities’.The ranking is largely based on global performance and visibility of the universities on the web.In the previous results which were released in January this year, the NUR had been ranked 68th in sub-Saharan Africa and 4,407 in the world.In the recent rankings, released late in July, the university stands at the 43th in sub- Saharan Africa and 4,158th position worldwide. This means the public varsity has moved up 25 places on the continent and 249 globally.In its recent report, Webometrics ranked 20,745 world universities with the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) at 10,563, the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) placed at 14, 685 position, Kigali Independent University (ULK) at 15,366 position and Kigali Health Institute at 15,479.Reacting to the rankings, Prof Silas Lwakabamba, the rector of NUR, said he was happy with the significant improvement his institution had made.He attributed it to efforts by the Huye-based varsity’s staff members and students who championed the visibility of the institution.“The problem is that institutions do not showcase what they are doing, which may lead to low ranking,” he noted.“The more academic publications you have, the more equipment you acquire, the more efforts you make to improve the quality of education...you need to show all these things for the institution to move up. We have done a lot to show what we did.”He said the NUR has, for instance, improved its website’s content, stressing that the web is always updated.Started in 2004, the ranking is based on a combined indicator that takes into account both the volume of the web content, visibility and impact of these web publications according to the number of external in-links (citations) they received.According to Webometrics, the ranking of universities is geared at motivating both institutions and scholars to have web presence that accurately reflects their activities.The ranking that is done twice a year – in January and July – puts Makerere University first in East Africa and ninth in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is followed by the University of Nairobi at the 11th position while the University of Dar-es-Salaam stands at the 18th place.The highest ranking university in Burundi, Université Lumière de Bujumbura, comes last in the top 100 on the Sub-Saharan list and 10,319 globally.In Africa, the University of Cape Town tops the category, but comes 334 worldwide.Harvard University (USA) is ranked first worldwide.