Empirical analysis of webometric ranking in Nigeria polytechnics education sector

Abstract

The January 2022 edition of webometric ranking placed Yaba College of Technology as number one from 152 polytechnics in Nigeria. The ranking weight is 66 for country ranking, 8162 world ranking, Impact, Openness, and Excellence of 9698, 4558, and 7190 respectively. The negative variation and low webometric ranking of Yaba College of Technology that happened to be the first higher institution of learning in Nigeria with the slogan the first and still the best is a point of concern and motivates this research work. This research work collected data to evaluate the indicators for webometric ranking among the students and staff of Yaba College of Technology, a total of 346 were sampled students 44.51 % and Staff 55.49 %. The discussion and analysis of data obtained revealed that the poor webometric ranking is due to inadequacy of the necessary ICT infrastructure to encourage robust web presence; non-availability of up-to-date and scanty content on the Polytechnics website; Non-frequent usage of the Polytechnic website by the staff and students of the Polytechnic; the inadequate number of external networks (subnets) links with Polytechnic website; insufficient number of the top-cited publications in high impact Journals from the staff of the Yaba College of Technology; and Scanty number of the profile of staff from the Polytechnic on Google Scholar and ResearchGate, etc. among others. This research work opined that low webometric ranking could result in the following negative impact on the polytechnics lowering the esteem of the Polytechnic in the eyes of stakeholders, potential students and funding agencies, academic exchange with reputable institutions from other parts of the world for teaching, learning and research may writhe. The consequence of our findings recommendations was made to improve webometric ranking in future.