In the rankings of various prominent international and national evaluation bodies, Unisa keeps improving towards being the leading African institution in research and the provision of industry-commendable engineering and computer science studies.

Webometrics

Unisa was ranked among the top 1000 universities in a study that included 31000 higher education institutions, many of which had previously been left out of global rankings, according to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, the largest public research body in Spain and a part of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).

Webometrics says the ranking is exclusively based on “link analysis, which includes bibliographic citations used by other university rankings, and also third-party involvement with university activities”. In other words, the 2022 Webometrics focused on three main benchmarks:

Visibility: The number of external networks (subnets) linking to the institution’s web pages (50%)

Transparency or openness: The number of citations from the top 210 authors, excluding the top 20 outliers (10%)

Excellence: The number of papers amongst the top 10% most cited in each one of the 27 disciplines of the full database over the last five years (40%)

Unisa’s overall global ranking was 805^th. The visibility impact was at 1 213, openness at 1 041, and excellence at 885. Locally, Unisa’s position was at number seven, while the University of Cape Town, which scored 245 in the global standing, was at first position locally.

Click here to view all the South African rankings

MyBroadband

A recent study of the Best Universities to Study Engineering and Computer Science in South Africa, conducted by MyBroadband, ranked Unisa at number eight. This study used the following educational institution raking systems:

Times Higher Education Engineering (THE-E)

Times Higher Education Computer Science (THE – CS)

SCIMAGO Engineering (SCIMAGO – E)

SCIMAGO Computer Science (SCIMAGO – CS)

University Ranking by Academic Performance Engineering (URAP – E)

University Ranking by Academic Performance Technology (URAP – T)

However, the THE-E and the THE-CS metrics were not available for Unisa at the time the ranks were published, which saw Unisa score an overall 61.48, While the University of Pretoria scored 88.35 and was sitting at position one.

Click here to view all the South African rankings.

Academic Rankings of World Universities

The Academic Ranking of World Universities for 2022 was published by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy in mid-August, continuing a nearly 20-year-old list overseen by experts from around the world. It uses a set of metrics that include how many Nobel prizes an institution won in the year and how many papers its staff published where, then divides the result by the number of full-time equivalent academic staff at each university, to level the playing field between large and small universities.

In South Africa, Unisa placed eighth, with the University of Cape Town just beating Wits to take the top spot.

Click here to view all the South African rankings.

Vice-Principal of Research, Postgraduate Studies, Innovation and Commercialisation, Professor Thenjiwe Meyiwa, highly commended the institution’s improvements.  “The upward move we are currently experiencing is an indication of the fact that Unisa is a noteworthy player globally and locally in the practice and products of research,” she said. “This feat is enormous as a we are conventionally a distance learning institution. Despite our known identity and mode of operation we are making significant headway towards being impactful research, the kind of research that brings about beneficial tangible change.”

On what could be done better for the institution to keep moving upwards, Meyiwa asserted that she is confident that despite the institution’s considerable accomplishments, they won’t take success for granted and instead keep pushing towards higher targets.

“Every time we advance,” she said, “we look back to consider how we may enhance our most recent successes. Consequently, as a university committed to actively shaping the future for the benefit of humanity and to a different world, we regularly focus on how to continually enhance our human resources”

Addressing the university’s vision of being the leader in scholarly practices, Meyiwa said: “It is our determined aspiration, crafted in our plans to be one of the leading universities in the African continent.” She also stated that Unisa envisions itself taking a critical lead in innovative research-informed solutions for a considerably enhanced South Africa and, by extension, the African continent. This, she adds, is built on Unisa’s social justice mandate, which sets the institution apart as being the most accessible and inexpensive university.

*By Godfrey Madibane, Unisa Radio Journalist, Department of Institutional Advancement