Creating ratings of agricultural universities based on their digital footprint

This chapter discusses the issue of generating ratings of the Russian agricultural universities, calculated using their passive, active, and semi-active digital footprint. The results of creating ratings show the areas for increasing the efficiency in implementing the instructions of the President of Russia back in 2012 on the achievement of the following indicator of improving the activities of Russian universities: five should be included in the rating of the hundred best world universities. The method for calculating the passive digital footprint is based on website metrics techniques. The active digital footprint includes information scientific and educational resources posted on universities' websites in the form of developments, publications, consultations, legal and statutory materials, remote training, custom software, databases, and information about electronic employment agencies and digital marketplaces. The semi-active footprint includes information collected from subordinate educational institutions and processed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation in the form of a self-examination report. To calculate the ratings, the relevant methodology has been developed. The ratings obtained are compared, with the calculation of the integrated metric, which serves as an indicator of a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of agricultural universities' use of information resources.