“Nicolae Testemitanu” University maintains first place among country’s universities in Webometrics International Ranking

“Nicolae Testemitanu” State University of Medicine and Pharmacy of the Republic of Moldova maintains FIRST PLACE at the national level and has climbed 287 positions worldwide in the Ranking Web of Universities (Webometrics), compared to the July 2022 edition.

According to the Webometrics Report, published at the end of January 2023, our university ranks 282nd among universities in Central and Eastern Europe, 1140th among those on the European continent, and 3688th among the more than 31 thousand institutions present online globally. 

Thus, Nicolae Testemitanu University ranks first in the Transparency (Openness) area, registering an increase of 237 positions worldwide, due to the increase in the number of citations in Google Scholar, from 25,573 (July 2022) to 27,613 (January 2023). Advancement of 36 positions worldwide can also be seen in the Excellence indicator, where the institution also holds the leading position. At the same time, in the last six months, our university advanced by 766 positions worldwide as regards the Impact (Visibility) indicator.

Established in 2004 by the Cybermetrics Lab from Spain (Spanish National Research Council, CSIC), Webometrics is a classification system for universities around the world, which aims to motivate both institutions and researchers. The main objective of the Webometrics ranking is to promote Open Access to university-generated knowledge. The best strategy to improve your ranking is to increase the quantity and quality of your web content. 

Ranking Web of Universities is published twice a year and analyzes over 31 thousand higher education institutions in the world, according to three indicators:

50% – Impact – the total number of external links that the institution's web domain receives from third parties (Ahrefs Majestic);

10% – Transparency – the total number of citations of the university's researchers found in the top 310 author profiles, excluding the first 30 profiles (Google Scholar Profiles);

40% – Excellence – the quality of scientific articles published in international journals with a high impact factor, in the top 10% most cited in 27 disciplines, according to 2017-2021 data (Scimago).

In the current edition of Webometrics, the organizers came up with some recommendations regarding authors' profiles on Google Scholar, namely:

 1. The need to indicate the official name of the university upon affiliation and the INSTITUTIONAL personalized email address of the author/authors.

 2. Non-individual profiles (journals, departments, groups, conferences) are penalized up to the EXCLUSION of the entire institution (the number of citations is equal to zero).

3. BAD PRACTICES. If multiple author profiles not belonging to the University are intentionally added to increase its rating, the institution will be EXCLUDED from the ranking. Over 1,400,000 Google Scholar Citations (GSC) profiles were analyzed in the current edition.

 The creation of a personal profile in Google Scholar is voluntary, but once it is made public, the responsibility for the correctness of the information belongs to the author. GSC automatically updates profiles, which sometimes automatically adds irrelevant listings and citations to the profile. Authors should be aware of these issues and review their profiles periodically. Institutions should also monitor their community member profiles to rule out intentional (or unintentional) false, incorrect, or duplicate registrations. This is key to the ranking, as any institution identified with such non-conformities may be excluded from future editions of the ranking.

4. The figures are only valid at the time of collection (January 1-20, 2023).

5. A few universities have two main web domains, but only the best overall ranking is included in the main ranking.