Research Activities and University Ranking in Sudan

 Original Article,

Research Activities and University Ranking: Academic Staff Opinion from a Sudanese University, with Roadmap for Improvement

Ali A. Hamad^1*, Noon H. K. Alrabee², Mohamed N. Elsheikh³, 

Mohamed H. Ahmed⁴, NazikElmalaika O. S. Husain⁵

Abstract:

Background: University ranking is an essential and crucial benchmark of excellence. In this study, we investigated the academic staff perception of a Well-Established Sudanese University (WESU) regarding reasons behind the low university ranking and how to improve it, focusing on research as it represents a considerable weight in university ranking systems.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional quantitative study, collected data through a structured self-administered, pre-tested Google form questionnaire. SPSS was used to analyze the data.

Results: Of the 114 respondents, 95.6% (n=109) believed university ranking is important, about 60% (n=69) had published, with only 7% (n=8) having more than 20 publications. Around a third 36%(n=41) of those who published research used affiliation other than the WESU. Seventy-nine percent (n=90) of the participants perceived that lack of budget for scientific research was a leading cause of low university ranking, followed by the absence of clear scientific vision and the frustration of many teachers, who tended to abandon research and authorship, among other factors. Furthermore, most of the WESU academic staff did not have accounts on academic social media.

Conclusion: As a result of the study, seven themes emerged regarding how the university ranking could be improved. The most important of these were raising awareness about ranking among academic staff, funding, improving the university's online content, and encouraging publishing in journals with high impact. The investigators think that these parameters do not apply only to WESU, but also to most other Sudanese universities.

Keywords: University Ranking, Sudanese Universities, Publication, Research Funding.

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1 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Nile University, East Nile, Khartoum North, Khartoum, Sudan.
2 Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Middle Compound Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan.
3 Department of Global Health and Infection, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, UK.
4 Department of Medicine, Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Eaglestone, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK.
5 Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Omdurman Islamic University, Omdurman, Khartoum, Sudan.
*Corresponding author: Ali A. Hamad, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Nile University, East Nile, Khartoum North, Khartoum, Sudan. Email: dr.aliadam@gmail.com

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Introduction:

The role of universities in developing technology, medicine, engineering, and financial systems and innovation in the current world is widely felt in all aspects of our lives, locally and globally.^(1,2) Therefore, it is not surprising that since the development of The Shanghai University’s Academic Ranking for World Universities (ARWU) in 2004, students, researchers, governments, and funders have been closely looking for universities with high ranks. ^(3,4) Notably, the three main functions of the universities are education, scientific research, and social accountability. Therefore, ranking systems always try to assess the quality of these three elements. Of these, research is the most objectively and realistically measurable. ⁽⁵⁾

The criteria and indicators used by ranking systems often share many similarities, but their weights can vary greatly.⁽⁶⁾ ARWU measures six indicators: a) Staff awards (winning Nobel Prizes of Fields medals), b) highly cited researchers, c) papers published in Nature and Science,  d) papers indexed in Science Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index, e) quality of education (Alumni winning Nobel Prizes or Fields medals) and f) finally the per capita performance of an institution.⁽⁷⁾ The United Kingdom Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings uses thirteen performance indicators, which are grouped into five areas: a) Teaching (the learning environment); b) Research (volume, income, and reputation), c) Citations (research influence), d) International outlook (staff, students and research) and e) Industry income (knowledge transfer).⁽⁸⁾

The Web Ranking represents the leading Spanish Webometrics ranking as it reflects the global performance of the university, the quality of its departments and services, the impact of its outputs, and its international prestige.⁽⁹⁾ It included 31000 Higher Education Institutions from more than 200 countries.⁽¹⁰⁾ The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), headquarters in the United Arab Emirates, uses seven indicators grouped into four areas to rank the world universities: a) Quality of Education, b) Alumni Employment, c) Quality of Faculty, and d) Research Performance.⁽¹¹⁾ The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University, which is considered one of the most accurate and reliable ranking systems uses five parameters: Academic reputation, Faculty/student ratio, Citations per faculty, Employer reputation and the International faculty/student ratio. The QS system is approved by the International Ranking Expert Group.⁽¹²⁾ Recently, the Alper-Doger Scientific Index (AD Scientific Index) has been released, which relies on the scientific performance and the added value of the scientific productivity of individual.⁽¹³⁾

The data collected for this research was obtained from a well-established university in Sudan and will be referred to in this article as the Well Established Sudanese University (WESU) for anonymity. It is an academic institute with more than 60,000 students and reasonably good resources. Nevertheless, WESU is not part of the ARWU and THE ranking systems. Furthermore, it came late in Webometrics,⁽¹⁴⁾ being over the 5000^th internationally and in the mid-10000^th globally in the AD Scientific Index 2021. 

Locally, WESU ranked among the last seven of twenty-seven ranked Sudanese universities. (Information from the official website of the WESU). It is observed that Sudanese universities, in general, came late in the different ranking methodologies. However, the underlying causes behind such ranking are not well studied. Identifying the reasons for the current status and involving the WESU academic staff in highlighting the possible actions may help the stakeholders draw a roadmap for improving the Sudanese university ranking. This study aims to explore the knowledge of the academic staff at WESU about the international universities ranking and their opinion on the reasons for the current low rating of WESU and how to improve it, with especial attention to staff research activities, as it has considerable weight in most of the ranking systems.

Materials and Methods

Study Design and Area:

This was a cross-sectional descriptive study that targeted academic staff at WESU, which is a public university founded in the 20^th century. Its main campus is in grater Khartoum. WESU has several branches in the different States of Sudan. Currently, WESU has 20 Colleges and several institutes and branches. The number of academic staff members was over 1500; the undergraduate students were more than 60000, the postgraduate students were more than 4000, and the international students were around 400. (Information obtained from Wikipedia’s WESU page and the official website of WESU)

Data Management:

The study used a self-administered interview through a pre-tested Google form questionnaire to collect data. The Google form was sent to all academic staff who use a social media platform (WhatsApp). The university designed several WhatsApp groups for their staff and encouraged them to join.⁽¹⁵⁾ A hundred and fourteen academic staff members agreed to participate in the survey and signed an informed consent.

The questionnaire contained 29 questions, including socio-demographic characteristics, professional details, staff research activities, and participation in scientific social network sites. In addition to Lickert-scale, there were questions about the reasons behind low ranking and suggestions for upgrading. The online survey was conducted during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sudan (July 20 to August 10, 2021). Ethical clearance was obtained from the Research Ethical Committee at WESU.

The data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (IBM SPSS ver. 19.0). Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used.

Results 

The 114 participants represented WESU faculties, with percentages ranging from 16.7% from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences to 0.9% from the Faculty of Architecture and Planning. Of the 114 participants, 108 (95%) were on full-time contracts, and 95 (83%) served the university for six to 20 years. Table 1 shows other socio-demographic and general characteristics of WESU study participants.

            When asked about the importance of university ranking, 109 participants (95.6%) believed that university ranking is essential. Seventy-eight study participants (68.4%) had conducted research other than graduation, masters, or doctoral thesis. Additionally, 13 participants (11.4%) stated that they were currently researching. Sixty-nine participants (60.5%) had published research in scientific journals, with variable numbers of published papers.

The frequency of published manuscripts was one to ten in 46% of the academic staff. Only a minority had published more than ten papers. See Figure 1.

             Regarding support for scientific research, most participants (77.2%) had never received financial aid. Table 2 depicts the source of financial support for research conducted by WESU teachers.

The scarcity of funding to help drive scientific research and publication costs was the common belief of most participants (63%) when asked about the reasons that hinder a university teacher from publishing scientific research, followed by a lack of sufficient encouragement from higher authorities of the university (15%). See Figure 2.

Half of the participants work in WESU and also in other facilities. These facilities include teaching in other uuniversities (28.1%), practice-related to their profession (19.3%), and dedicated research centers (4.4%).

 

Among the 73 (64%) participants who published research, 53 (72.8%) used their WESU e-mail address, while 26 (36%) had published research with an affiliation or title other than WESU. 

Most WESU academic staff did not have accounts in Google Scholar, Scopus, ResearchGate, and Academia (Figure 3).

 

Table 3 shows WESU teachers' opinion about the different reasons for the low ranking of WESU. Almost all participants stated that research is essential for ranking and publications should target high-impact scientific journals. The majority of the staff (90%) believed that research is difficult to practice, which means that they need more training in research methodology. See Table 3.

Table 4 shows the WESU academic staff's ideas about improving WESU ranking. The data in the table show that the academic staff put a lot of weight on the support of higher authorities for research in terms of budgeting and encouraging publications in reputed journals as well as raising awareness of the importance of publishing and caring about university ranking.

Discussion 

University ranking is essential as it will reassure high-caliber students to join such an academic institute.⁽¹⁶⁾ The four elements of global competitiveness are Education, Research, Knowledge Transfer, and Global outlook.⁽⁶⁾ These elements were wholly or partially considered by most famous ranking bodies, namely ARWU, THE, QS, CWUR and the AD Scientific Index. Despite the increased investment in undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Sudan within the last three decades, the universities still need more investment to be included in these prestigious ranking systems. ^{(7,12, 17, 18)}

The study targeted all academic staff from the Well Established Sudanese University (WESU) and from all colleges to come out with realistic and reproducible results. Most participants were males and 78% were lecturers and assistant professors.  This is in agreement with previous studies in Sudan and Western countries that the number of males exceeded that of females in academic medicine.⁽¹⁹⁾ The high representation of males in educational institutes may lead to other problems, such as the need to increase financial income, which justifies their work in several institutions simultaneously. This assumption has been reflected in WESU academic staff. Thus, although all of the study participants (95%) were appointed with a full-time contract with relatively long years of service, the study showed that half of those who work at WESU were engaged in part-time agreements with other universities in Sudan. This is a common problem across Sudan, as reported by Zakaria Sulimanin in his study “Quality Assurance in Sudanese Higher Education”. He pointed out that university lecturers were forced to start looking for additional working hours outside their universities.⁽¹⁷⁾ Interestingly, Hammam Sarhan in a journalist report about universities in Arab countries, used the term "teachers of the bag" to denote the teachers who contract with more than one university in a desire to increase their financial income.⁽²⁰⁾

It is well documented in the literature that one of the barriers to research in academic institutions in different countries, including those in the Western world, is lack of funding and decreased payment of academic staff.⁽¹⁹⁾ Like other African countries, Sudan struggled with financing and providing dedicated time for research. Therefore, it is not surprising that some teaching staff showed less interest in research and publication. Ahmed et al. stated that despite the dedication and love of Sudanese doctors working in university hospitals to conduct medical research, most had been forced to work in private clinics and hospitals to earn decent income for their families.⁽²¹⁾ Furthermore, the economic situation also results in the migration of teachers to work in other countries, the same result noted by Zakaria, who stated that one "of the most critical problems facing Sudanese universities is the brain drain problem of highly qualified faculty staff.

In recent years, statistics showed an increasing trend of teaching staff leaving the country to join universities and the business industry in the Arab countries, especially in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region”.⁽¹⁷⁾

Considering the opinion of WESU teachers, three points can be deduced; a) Raise the awareness and funding of scientific research and publication. This matches the tremendous weight of research in most of the universities ranking systems.^(5,6,8) Furthermore, Hisham Ali concluded that raising the funds will help Sudanese universities transform from solely educational institutions into giving significant weight to research by launching  Research Excellence Programs.⁽²²⁾ b) Research facilities and infrastructure should be strengthened with accessibility for digital and online materials, the same conclusion mentioned by Hammam Sarhan.⁽²⁰⁾ c) Participation in international conferences will also enhance the university’s ranking. Abdallah Alabbad mentioned the same idea of globalization in his study about rising King Saud University ranking. Renowned universities with high competitiveness have fundamental principles that include international partnerships, focus on team based scientific research, technological intelligence, and abundant resources.⁽²³⁾ This explains the fact that the top universities in the USA continue to dominate the top list in most of the ranking systems. The universities in Africa included in the QS World University Ranking 2023 and the Times Higher Education 2022 World University Rankings were mostly from Egypt and South Africa. Other African countries featured were Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Tunisia.^(24-26) The 2022 QS Arab region university ranking placed the King Abdul-Aziz University, Saudi Arabia, in the top position. This was due to excellent academic reputation citations per faculty and the number of staff holding PhD or equivalent. Qatar University held the second position in ranking with an outstanding score for publications per faculty.⁽²⁷⁾

Thus, the top ten institutions in the Arab Region were King Abdul-Aziz University, Qatar University, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, American University of Beirut, United Arab Emirates University, King Saud University, Sultan Qaboos University, American University of Sharjah, Khalifa University of Science and Technology and the University of Jordan.⁽²⁸⁾ In the international list of the QS World University Ranking for 2022, we found that the top university in the Arab Region (King Abdul-Aziz University) ranked 109 internationally, and the 10th University in the list lies in the 601- 650 position internationally.⁽²⁹⁾ It is worth noting that research funding in Arab countries does not exceed 0.2% compared to the minimum recommended of 2,28% globally.⁽³⁰⁾

When considering Sudanese Universities in the QS World Ranking system for 2022, only the University of Khartoum (U of K) and Sudan University of Science and Technology (SUST) ranked in the 1200+ order. The top 10 Sudanese Universities, according to Webometrics, 2022 were the U of K, SUST, Gezira University, University of Science & Technology Omdurman, Omdurman Islamic University (OIU), Alneelain University, University of Bahri, Mashreq University, Future University of Sudan, and International University of Africa (IUA).⁽¹⁴⁾ Noteworthy, not a single Sudanese university was included in the Shanghai or the Times World Ranking systems. ^(7,12,17,18)

Web of Science is another institution that ranked the Sudanese universities based on the H index, which was developed by J.E. Hirsch. It reflects the productivity of authors based on their publication and citation records. Researchers use the H-index to assess the quality of the published articles, which is a valuable indicator of their scientific output.^(29,31,32) In the recently released University Ranking, the U of K was on top of the Sudanese list, with an H-index of 68, followed by the University of Gezira (H-index 31), Neelain University (H-index 28), OIU (H-index 25), and SUST (H-index 24).⁽³³⁾

The Well Established Sudanese University occupied near the 6000s order out of 31000s in webometrics.⁽¹⁴⁾ Importantly, it is not included in the three famous systems of QS, THE, and Shanghai. Among Sudanese universities, WESU ranking differs from one classification system to another.^(12,34)

Our study showed that about one-third of the study participants had no publications, and only 7% of WESU academic staff had more than 20 publications. Similar levels of research productivity by academic staff were reported in other African countries.⁽³⁵⁾ In several publications addressing the problem of university ranking, it has been advised that ranking may improve by recruiting experienced researchers  to help improving scientific writing by graduate students working for Masters and PhD, publishing in journals with high impact factors, writing books in international publishing houses with open source for more citations, in addition to hiring researchers as adjuncts and visiting professors to write papers in reputed journals such as Nature and Science, so as to enlighten faculty members about writing highly citable articles.^(28,36-39) Adopting a culture of scientific publishing and directing academic staff members to join and register in scientific communication sites is vital for strengthening research productivity.^(40-42) Most WESU teachers did not have Google Scholar, Scopus, Research Gate, or Academia profiles. Similar perspectives were stated by Sohail and Daud “using social networks to communicate scientific knowledge enhances research productivity and the number of publications and citations”.⁽⁴³⁾ Perhaps other activities for improving visibility in the scientific social media include creating pages in different languages, especially English; translating books and research and adding them to the digital repository; cooperating with bodies concerned with scientific research and publication; providing appreciation and scientific recognition for those who publish scientifically, and create a personal pages for all researchers on Google Scholar.⁽⁴⁴⁾

Conclusions

It can be concluded from this study that the following seven recommendations may be implemented to improve the ranking status of WESU. The investigators think that these parameters do not apply only to WESU but also would be appropriate to most other Sudanese universities:

1.      The university leadership should monitor university ranking on various platforms and raise students' and staff's awareness of the importance of ranking.

2.      Improve the university's digital content and ease access to online data to improve global outlook.

3.      Encourage university staff and graduate students to publish their research, preferably in journals of high impact factor.

4.      Encourage teachers to create profiles on scientific social networks.

5.      Increase the staff-to-student ratio and work to provide the staff with satisfying salaries to face reasonable living standards.

6.      Encourage international collaboration with other universities and teachers and take the advantage of the Sudanese academic staff available abroad.

7.      University authorities should push to make the university ranking in the National Vision, Mission, and Strategic Planning.

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