Belgorod State University moves 102 positions up in Webometrics Ranking in six months

In comparison with June-July of the previous year, the ranking for Belgorod State University has improved by 102 positions, resulting in the University being ranked 1766 in the world. We asked the Professor of the Chair of World Economics of Belgorod State University Vladimir Moskovkin, who is one of the proponents of the movement for open access to scientific knowledge, about the reasons of such a dramatic increase in the University’s ranking position. He said: “The position of Belgorod State University in the world ranking, which is now 1766, is made up of the following vector of ranks of partial indicators used in the Webometrics ranking (1538, 2756, 1173, and 2891)”.

The first indicator (1538, weight is equal to 1/6) is responsible for the total number of pages on the University’s site, determined by Google; the second indicator (2756, weight is equal to 1/2) is responsible for the external references (links) to the site; the third indicator (1173, weight is equal to 1/6) is responsible for the number of “enriched” files determined by Google Scholar; and the final indicator (2891, weight is equal to 1/6) is responsible for the number of highly cited Scopus publications (which is, in fact, not a Webometrics indicator). As we can see, the rank of the third indicator is significantly higher than the ranks of other indicators, and this is directly attributed to the digitization of more than 9 thousand documents and their placement in the electronic archive of open access in form of pdf-files that are automatically indexed by Google Scholar. Thus, the success of Belgorod State University in the global Webometrics Ranking should be solely credited to the effort of bibliographers of Nikolai N.Strakhov Scientific Library of Belgorod State University aimed at enlarging the electronic archive of open access.