Digital Academic Identity
The importance of Digital Academic Identity
In the previous section, Digital Transformation,
we talk about the paradigm shift that digitalization is assuming. A change that affects all sectors and all companies and institutions. A change, which only fits to survive in the future and not lose relevance. And this change, of course, also affects the field of Universities.
The traditional model
of assessing the relevance of universities through rankings whose criteria do not take into account digital parameters, is beginning to become obsolete.
However, there is a web ranking of universities prepared by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), called Webometrics, which classifies the vast majority of universities in the world based on objective criteria
that measure only digital aspects.
Thus, this tool is the basis that will allow, little by little, the methodology to evaluate and classify universities to be changed. It will go from "bibliometry" (the evaluation of a few for a few) to "webmetry" (the evaluation of all by all and for all. The popularization and democratization of scientific evaluation).
Therefore, it is no longer about measuring what certain people say about their own universities, it is about measuring the impact and recognition that a university has, through its website, in society. Therefore, “metrics for the digital age” are taken into account: links (backlinks and subnets), visits, visualizations, downloads, tagging, mentions, comments, reviews, ratings, follow-ups and appointments (Google Scholar). Thus, the indicators established by Webometrics
are:
- Impact (50%):
Prestige of the University in terms of its relationship with society through the relationships that the institution has on the web.
- Presence (5%):
Importance of the University through its teaching, sports offer...
- Opening (10%):
Transparency and work performed at the university for its research, based on data from Google Scholar.
- Excellency (35%):
Research excellence of the institution through high impact publications.
DIGITAL ACADEMIC IDENTITY
The traditional model of scientific communication
is based on the publication
of research articles in journals, books in editorials and communications in congresses and subsequent dissemination through documents indexed to unopened databases. In many cases, there is no dissemination through the internet
(university website, Social Media, etc.) of scientific production, greatly reducing its impact on society and its linkage with it.
The prestige of an institution should not be based only on its teaching and research work, but on how that teaching and research work is disseminated through the Internet and impacts society and it recognizes interest and prestige through visits, citations of content web, information shared by Social Media, etc.
Thus, it is vitally important to create a "Digital Academic Identity" for the academic institution, with which to position the "brand" or "identity" of it through the Internet. There are many actions and initiatives that are carried out in an institution, from senior management or from the different groups that make up a University (teachers, researchers, associate staff, students, ...) that are not linked to the website of the same, losing the possibility of reaching society and that it can know and recognize them. The biggest showcase that a university has to reach society, its future students, teachers and researchers, is its website.
The construction of a digital academic identity must transcend the academic, collecting everything that brings value to the institution and society, such as a sports team of the institution, its own museum, ... All this has an impact on the prestige of the institution, which will allow it to better position itself in the university rankings.
This new model of scientific communication
is based on the 4 pillars measured by Webometrics and that could be graphically represented as follows:
A CASE OF SUCCESS: HARVARD
Harvard University is number 1 in the Webometrics Ranking and is a clear example of a success story.
Despite being a private university, with requirements to enter really high academic and economic (only accept 5.2% of applications according to "The Boston Globe"), it has available to society many free courses with the same quality content that the degrees, degrees and masters taught to their students. In this way, they offer society a service that it recognizes with visits, sharing links to courses, positive assessments, etc.
Although, evidently Harvard is much more than its free courses, with this strategy they get more diffusion of their website and their digital academic identity, capturing visits, getting many people to do the free courses and then request to enter a payment course to deepen on the subject.
All that value contributed to society by Harvard is taken into account with the Webometrics Ranking. Thus, this strategy has an impact, in part, on making Harvard the best university in the world.
