Makerere University of Uganda has been placed at the 13th position among the best Universities in Africa according to the latest webometrics rankings.
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities is an initiative of the cybermetrics lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior De Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.
The Webometrics survey that evaluated 11,993 universities worldwide based on their excellence, openness, and impact, put Makerere University in 13th position.
However, Prof. Cyprian Misinde, the director of quality assurance at Makerere University, said the university has not reached its target of being number one in Africa.
“There are several reasons why we are not yet the first in Africa. One, many of our staff publish in closed-access journals. These are excellent journals, but may not be accessed easily since they require payment hence the articles they publish are not cited widely,” Prof Misinde noted.
He added that many projects by Makerere staff are not uploaded on the website, which limits the global visibility and impact.
The vice chancellor of Makerere University, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, said; “As top Law Schools withdraw from various university rankings citing credibility, we are going to review our participation in each of these rankings. We will subsequently decide on whether to continue participating in some or not all.”
This follows an article posted by WSJ, an international news website, stating that Yale Law School Harvard Medical School pulled out of the US news and world report’s medical-school ranking, which they have dominated for decades, issuing a significant blow to the credibility and power of the high-profile rankings.
