January 15, 2016, 9:39a.m. – THE UNIVERSITY placed seventh among 272 Philippine schools in the 2016 listing of Spain’s Webometrics Ranking of World Universities based on Internet presence.
UST stood at the 3,380th spot out of 11,992 universities ranked globally, up by 1,216 places from No. 4,596 last year when it ranked the ninth highest among Philippine schools on the list.
The University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman campus remained the top university in the country based on Webometrics data, with a world ranking of 1,411st. But UP Diliman slipped 55 places from the 1,356th spot last year.
De La Salle University got the second highest rank among local schools this year. However, La Salle’s world ranking also went down, by 115 places to the 2,191st spot from last year’s 2,076th.
UP Manila swapped places with UP Los Baños, landing on the third spot among Philippine schools from fourth last year. UP Manila placed 2,616th globally, up from last year’s 2,932nd. UP Los Baños’ world ranking meanwhile went down by 462 places to 2,730th this year from the 2,268th spot last year.
Ateneo de Manila was still the fifth highest-ranked Philippine school, with a world ranking of No. 3,046, up by 73 places from the 3,119th spot last year.
The UP System is still on sixth place among Philippine schools with a world ranking of 3,137th, improving by 1,033 places from 4,079th place last year.
Meanwhile, the University of Southeastern Philippines in Davao City maintained the eighth highest rank among Philippine schools with a world ranking of 3,615th, up by 880 places from 4,495th place last year.
Universidad de Zamboanga, which had a world ranking of No. 4,376, managed to be on the ninth spot among Philippine schools this year from 24th last year.
Completing the Philippine top 10 list is the University of San Carlos in Cebu, which had a world ranking of No. 5,791.
St Michael’s College of Iligan City and Aquinas University of Bicol, which placed seventh and 10th respectively among Philippine schools last year, failed to repeat their top 10 finishes, landing on the 13th and 15th spots respectively this year.
Established in 2004, the Webometrics ranking is spearheaded by the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group under the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid, the largest public research body in Spain.
The ranking, updated every January and July, is based on universities’ Web presence, visibility and Web access. It measures the presence of universities in the Web through their web domains, sub-pages, rich files and scholarly articles. Alhex Adrea M. Peralta
