Potentials - November/December 2014 - 43

or specialized professional packages
like SPSS, Stata, and geographic information systems that aided in electronic research and academic document
publishing. Among total respondents,
41 have followed a certificate course
related to basic IT skills, whereas 39
respondents have either an IT-related degree or an IT postgraduate or

Lankan state universities highlighted
that online research publication is
one of the important indicators in
ranking methodology. The results of
the third objective, to identify Web
engagement of candidate contributors
of Sri Lankan state university Web
sites (related to Webometric rankings), revealed that most of the candi-

It was observed that there was a
significant difference between the Web ranking
of Sri Lankan universities and top-ranked
universities around the world.
specialized in training IT degree. But
the skills in Web publishing technologies were only 5%, which is comparatively very weak.

Achieving a higher
Webometric ranking
According to these findings, Web site
content improvements and improvement of the Web engagement of academic staff are strategies that can be
implemented in the short run. Identifying the ways and means of
achieving a higher Webometric ranking revealed that improving Web site
contents while encouraging the Web
engagement of contributors would
be an efficient and effective strategy.

Discussion, conclusion, and
recommendations
The results of the statistical analysis
to identify factors that affect on the
status of Webometric rankings of Sri
Lankan state universities proved that
the number of in-links, rich files, and
Google Scholar files have comparatively higher contributions on Web
performance. A high positive correlation was discovered between the
number of Web pages and the number of Google Scholar files indexed. It
was also observed that there was a
significant difference among Webbased rankings of Sri Lankan state
universities and top-ranked universities around the world. The findings of
identifying factors that affect the status of Webometric rankings of Sri

date contributors are equipped with
necessary Web publication facilities
and make use of the Internet for their
teaching and research work but they
have lower engagement in Web publication and online educational
resources dissemination due to a lack
of technological skills and awareness.
Most of the Sri Lankan state universities do not have adequate IT facilities and sufficient funds for research
and development activities due to
shrinking budgets allocated by the
UGC. All state universities are funded
by the government through the UGC,
and most universities do not have
other income sources except from the
market developed for postgraduate
education. Further, the results implied that the top management of universities are not sufficiently aware of
the benefits of new technologies and
their applications. This has adversely
affected the overall performance of
university Websites as well.
The feedback of academics revealed that university administration should reconsider revising their
IT policies to embrace new technologies. The feedback suggests that the
universities should promote open access initiatives to bring the benefits
of research to the wider community,
which will raise the profile of universities and its academics. The findings
prove that university academics have
the attitude that they should be provided the necessary digital equipment
(hardware and software). The UGC

and the government should make the
necessary arrangements to improve
the IT infrastructure of Sri Lankan
state universities by allocating sufficient funds and providing more
opportunities for exposure to more
advance technologies used in other
universities in the developed world.
Universities should also enforce
efficient IT policies to utilize available resources. The allocation of sufficient budget for the maintenance of
university Web sites and optimizing
Web content is important for success, while facilitating staff training
programs on Web publishing and related technologies.
Universities can encourage existing
academics to carry out more research
and to publish it while giving favor to
recruiting academics with more experience and research exposure. Also,
universities can persuade staff to
publish their research output in prestigious open access journals with high
impact factors. Changing the attitudes
and mentality of academic staff members to facilitate online educational
content dissemination is important,
as many academics in developing
countries are still reluctant to publish
in open access journals.
In particular, this study has shown
that the the overall success of Webbased ranking is dependent upon the
visibility and activity of the university.
The quality content, Web engagement
of academics, and healthy links will
help to achieve higher Web visibility
and activity. The relevant authorities
should focus on strengthening necessary Web publishing facilities and the
skills of academic staff. It was also noted that universities should reinforce
their Web policies and encourage effective Web engagement of their academic
staff in online research publication
and resource sharing. The findings of
this research can contribute to knowledge on the ways and means of achieving better Webometric rankings.

Read more about it
* A. Islam and S. Alam. (2011,
Aug.). Webometric study of private
universities in Bangladesh. Malaysian J. Libr. Inform. Sci. [Online].
16(2), pp. 115-126. Available:

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