Reactions Trails Delsu Latest Webometric Rating As 38 Best University In Nigeria – The Liberator

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A Ghana based Ms Omote Nwanchukwu from University of Ghana has discredited attempt by Prof. Andy O. Egwunyenga, the new vice-chancellor of Delta state University to claime the glory of webometric ranking of Delta state University as the 38th best University in the country and 11th best among state Universities in the country.

In a statement signed by Ms Omote Nwanchukwu from University of Ghana, a copy of which was made available to The Liberator Newspaper said that the new Delsu VC lied over the webometric ranking of Delta State University.

She said webometric ranked Delta State University as the best 11th state Universities in the country and not 7th, and best 38th among Nigerian Universities, and that the public should disregard every misleading information propagated by the overzealous VC and mischievous persons.

She added that the landslide achievement shouldn’t had been attributed to the new VC as he barely served 6months since his deployment as new VC in Delta State University.

The Ghana based Nigerian went further to say the 2020 Webometrics ranking was done and concluded in December, 2019, as revealed by the associated literature and not a work done by the new VC who was deployed in 2020.

The statement read in part:

“DELSU MAKES GIANT STRIDE IN GLOBAL ACADEMIC RANKING” – CONGRATS BUT HA HA HA HA

“On June 10, 2020, THISDAYLIVE carried the sensational propagandist flashy headline, DELSU MAKES GIANT Stride in Global Academic Ranking. As a Postgraduate Student. I was immediately attracted to reading this piece of write up and found a lot of hollow in it and many gullible readers would have been mislead by this charlatans and demagogues

“The scream was that DELSU made great gains from its 78th position among Nigerian Universities to a more respectable 38th position (40 points lift) and from a previous 19th position to 7th among State Universities, so stated the acting Director, ceremonials, Information and Public Relations of the University, Dr. Ben Nwanne. My guess was that the acting Director must be a Journalist by training. There is no doubt the University community was excited about the so called significant improvement in the rating of DELSU which the Acting Director attributed to the enlightened and committed leadership of the vice-chancellor Prof. Andy O. Egwunyenga

“The Vice Chancellor who assumed duty just on December 1st, 2019 was no doubt very excited and his men jumped to catch on this seemingly magical and impressive performance within just six months of taking over the administration of DELSU. One time former Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Administration at DELSU, Prof, C. P. Aloamaka said: “This achievement is not surprising. It is not enough to know what to do, but it is more rewarding to carry people along in working towards your goal. This has earned DELSU great success”. One Prof. lgwe also added his praise

“As a scholar in the making, I was not too excited about the news because Webometrics ranking is not one of the best or highly respected ranking bodies

“The press release did not inform the reader in what year did Webometrics ranked DELSU 78th position among Nigerian Universities and 19th among State Universities? l, therefore, went into the internet to search for data to address this deliberate distortion which seems not to have recognized the achievement of previous administrations which is the characteristics of most new Chief Executives of most tertiary institutions in developing world. My search showed the following as findings which can be easily verified

“Going by Webometrics rankings by Cybermetrics Lab of Spain in the last two years (2018 and 2019 for example) shows that DELSU’s position among Nigerian Universities and State Universities was as follows:

Year of Webometrics Ranking Ranking Among Nigerian Universities Ranking Among State Universities”

“2020 38th Position 11th (not 7th Position),

2019 31st Position, 7th Position

2018 29th Position and 6th Position in state varsities.

“The University mouth piece did not tell the reader that Webometrics collects web data twice in a year to come up with its ranking. First during first week of January and secondly during first week of July each year and ranking published at the end of January and July each year. If so, the data for the new and first edition 2020 was collected during early January 2020 (the 17th year having been founded in 2004). If the incumbent Vice Chancellor came on board just one month when he had done nothing to enhance the existing website or University portal, then it would not be too correct to credit the so- called wonder to his administration, but to the previous administration which exited only 30th November, 2019”

“We do know that scholars do lie with statistics. Our DELSU should not be associated with such lies

“A close look at the 2020 WEBOMETRICS Ranking of Nigerian Universities shows that it is true that DELSU was placed at the 38th position. But it is not true that DELSU was placed at the 7th position among State Universities as claimed by the University spokesperson, but 11th position. For the benefit of doubt, the ten Universities top of DELSU going by the 2020 Web rankings are: (1) Ladoke Akintola University of Technology 2) Lagos State University (3) Ebonyi State University (4) Olabisi Onabanjo University (5) Niger Delta University (6) Adekunle Ajasin University (7) Rivers State University, Port Harcourt (8) Benue State University (9) Kebbi State University (10) Cross River State University of Science and Technology, Calabar (11) Delta State University, Abraka”

“Furthermore, if DELSU was 31st position by Webometrics ranking among Nigerian Universities in the 2019, then the true position is that DELSU has not made any Giant Stride in Global Academic Ranking in 2020 as claimed by the University. In fact, it has fallen from where it was. This should not be surprising because Universities may rise and fall in annual rankings

“My advice to the Prof. Andy O. Egwunyenga’s administration is that it is not yet uhuru. He should not allow sycophants to distract him from the path of academic excellence, zero tolerance for indiscipline, examination malpractice, sexual harassment, extortion of students and academic dishonesty among staff and students that the previous administration was noted for and for which those who loved evil so much detested being disciplined by council when found culpable by the appropriate disciplinary committee

“The administration should not rest on its oars by jubilating with the rise or no rise in Webometrics ranking. Rather, it should work assiduously and build on the solid foundation laid by his predecessors in effort to moving the University to an enviable position in terms of teaching, research and scholarship, and public service. It should work to achieve high ranking by such three major rankings: Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE), QS World University Rankings, and the Shanghai Ranking. These three reflect both research quality and impact and reputation, number of Nobel prizes won by staff, employability of graduates with well paid graduate jobs, university internalization defined by diversity of students and staff

DELTA no dey carry last. The University should shout loud and tap herself at the back when it is rated high by any of these major three ranking bodies. You can achieve this by having in a place quality promotion guidelines that encourages and rewards excellence rather than publications in predatory journals and other self printed junks. There should be incentives for promoting staff with an enviable record of consistently producing high quality research journals such as QI or Q2 or Al or A2 journals and making discoveries and patents for their works. The University should note that the trend now is to encourage academic staff to work hard to be on top of Universities by citations in Top Google Scholar Profiles. Here “ranking is based on highest number of citations from research outputs in the year under review’. DELSU is DELTA’s pride and we must guide it zealously and we must, as an academic community, be factual in our analysis and honest in presentations to be valued and respected rather than to be laughed at”

“In fact the 2020 Webometrics ranking was done and concluded in December, 2019, as revealed by the associated literature”

Ms. Omote Nwanchukwu writes from University of Ghana.

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