Altai State University became the leader among flagship universities according to publication activity in foreign media

The flagship Altai State University has once again become one of the media leaders.

According to the developers of the media ranking, the study is carried out in the interests of studying the media activity of Russian universities abroad, which demonstrates not only the level of internationalization of each university separately, but also the export potential of the higher education system as a whole. Priority was given to the English-language and Chinese-language media. The choice of segments of the English and Chinese languages in the foreign media field of the study is due to the vectors of the scientific and educational policy of the Russian Federation in 2020.

Altai State University took the first place among flagship universities according to mentioning in the media in China, leaving behind such strong flagship universities as Don State Technical University (DSTU), Novosibirsk State Technical University (NETI), Siberian State Medical University, Petrozavodsk State University (PetrSU), Belgorod State Technological University, etc.

In the segment of media in English, Altai State University took the second place in the third quarter of 2020, yielding only to Samara State Technical University (Samara Polytech), while demonstrating a positive trend in the number of publications.

The developers of the ranking argue that the results of the study record not only quantitative indicators of activity in the foreign media field, but also allow to assess the quality of the university's presence on key media platforms, and, therefore, can be equally useful both in planning and implementing the information policy of the university in foreign information markets and in assessing its results.

The research by the method of retrospective monitoring is carried out quarterly once every three months and is aimed at identifying the total number of references to Russian universities in sources in English and Chinese.

The study examines the source material available for search in Google and in the Factiva Dow Jones databases. The list of sources includes Russian in foreign languages and foreign print media (newspapers, journals), online media, news agencies, television and radio channels, and online scientific news services EurekAlert and PhysOrg. Specialized scientific publications are excluded from the list of sources. The selection of materials in the sources is based on the presence of monitoring objects in them.

When calculating the results, a single mention of the university is taken into account.

The ranking is carried out separately for groups of universities participating in the 5-100 Competitiveness Enhancement Program and for participants in the Flagship Universities program, and in 2020 separately for the segments of the Chinese and English languages. In order to improve the quality of publications and the number of publications on significant world information resources by universities, the indicator of the total number of publications in the media is taken as a ranking parameter, which includes: news agencies (including Russian in foreign languages), online media, print media, radio and television. The indicators of the publication activity of universities on the online scientific news services EurekAlert and PhysOrg, as well as data on WEB search are important for research, but they are not used in the process of ranking by media activity in foreign media.