WEBOMETRICS RANKING:
How
COVENANT UNIVERSITY Became Number One
The emergence
of Covenant University as number one University in Nigeria and West Africa
according to the latest Web metrics ranking is no more news. That the Ivory
Tower is also number 15 in Africa may not be new to many people. Also, according to the Chancellor, Dr. David
Oyedepo on Sunday 1st March 2015, the first university of the
commission recently added another feather in its glorious hat. CU now has the
largest concentration of researchers in the field of science!
But what
perhaps may not be known to many is how the 13-year-old private university
achieved this quantum leap within a relatively short period.
The Webometrics
Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of World Universities,
is a chart for the world's universities based on a composite indicator that
takes into account both the volume of the Web contents, visibility and impact of these web publications
according to the number of external in-links (site citations) they received.
According to Wikipedia.org, the
ranking is published by the Cybermetrics
Lab, a research group of the Spanish
National Research Council in Madrid.
Webometrics.info further explains it: “Web presence and visibility are used as
indicators of global performance of a university. These indicators take into
account the teaching commitment, research results, perceived international
prestige, links with the community, including industrial and economic sectors
of the university.”
PROPHETIC ROOT
At the
inception of the university over a decade ago, the Chancellor of the
University, Dr. David Oyedepo declared prophetically, “This University in the next few years…will become a major centre of
excellence in the world and a pride to the nation and an institution that the
entire world will be proud to be associated with.”
More
specifically, when the University turned 10 in year 2012, the Chancellor once
again declared that CU would be listed among the 10 world leading universities
by the year 2022. This was aptly christened “Vision 10: 2022, (1 of 10 in
10).”
As of the
time of the declaration, Covenant University was ranked 10th in
Nigeria and about 100 in Africa. But the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Charles
Korede Ayo and his team took the bull by the horns and began to run with the Vision.