03 December 2009

Japanese universities' websites fail to generate much traffic

There is only one Japanese university in the top 100 rankings for web traffic. That is Keio U., at number 13. Keio is an elite private university in Tokyo.

Todai, Japan's top university, gets into the top 200 at 109th place.

I suspect this lack of 'buzz' for Japanese universities' websites is caused by two factors. One, most of their websites are mostly in Japanese, with the few English language pages usually under the sign, "Under construction." Two, the very people who can use Japanese-language content don't surf much from computers. That is to say, the Japanese typically target specific, specially written pages (EZ Web) from their mobile phones, and that is the limit of their web surfing.



http://www.4icu.org/top200/

Excerpted here is the top 100 Universities and Colleges in the world by 4icu.org Web Popularity Ranking. To see the full 200, go to the link above.

1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
United States

2 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Mexico

3 Harvard University
United States

4 University of California, Berkeley
United States

5 Cornell University
United States

6 Purdue University
United States

7 Yale University
United States

8 University of Cambridge
United Kingdom

9 Indiana University - System
United States

10 University of Oxford
United Kingdom

11 Shanghai Jiao Tong University
China

12 National University of Singapore
Singapore

13 Keio University
Japan

14 Tsinghua University
China

15 Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russia

16 Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
Switzerland

17 The University of Melbourne
Australia

18 Cairo University
Egypt

19 Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Brazil

20 Peking University
China

21 Institut Teknologi Bandung
Indonesia

22 The Australian National University
Australia

23 Indian Institute of Technology Madras
India

24 Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
Germany

25 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
India

26 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Greece

27 Orta Dogu Teknik Üniversitesi
Turkey

28 Université de Genève
Switzerland

29 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Switzerland

30 Fudan University
China

31 Gazi Üniversitesi
Turkey

32 Bilkent Üniversitesi
Turkey

33 Bogaziçi Üniversitesi
Turkey

34 Zhejiang University
China

35 Istanbul Teknik Üniversitesi
Turkey

36 Universität Zürich
Switzerland

37 Technische Universiteit Delft
Netherlands

38 Tampereen Teknillinen Yliopisto
Finland

39 Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem
Hungary

40 Xi’an Jiaotong University
China

41 Universidade de Coimbra
Portugal

42 Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
India

43 Ankara Üniversitesi
Turkey

44 Université Catholique de Louvain
Belgium

45 Université de Lausanne
Switzerland

46 Dogu Akdeniz Üniversitesi
Cyprus

47 Ecole Normale Supérieure
France

48 Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
India

49 University of California System
United States

50 Bahçesehir Üniversitesi
Turkey

51 Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon
France

52 Akdeniz Üniversitesi
Turkey

53 Közép-Európai Egyetem
Hungary

54 Dai hoc Quoc gia Thanh Pho Hô Chí Minh
Vietnam

55 Sveucilište u Zagrebu
Croatia

56 Stanford University
United States

57 Penn State University
United States

58 The University of Texas at Austin
United States

59 University of Michigan
United States

60 University of Washington
United States

61 University of Pennsylvania
United States

62 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
United States

63 University of California, Los Angeles
United States

64 University of Minnesota
United States

65 University of Wisconsin-Madison
United States

66 Columbia University in the City of New York
United States

67 Universidade de São Paulo
Brazil

68 University of Virginia
United States

69 University of Florida
United States

70 New York University
United States

71 Carnegie Mellon University
United States

72 The Ohio State University
United States

73 Kungliga Tekniska högskolan
Sweden

74 University of Toronto
Canada

75 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
United States

76 Universidade de Brasília
Brazil

77 University of Maryland
United States

78 University of Arizona
United States

79 Texas A&M University
United States

80 Universidad de La Rioja
Spain

81 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
United States

82 Princeton University
United States

83 University of Southern California
United States

84 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
United States

85 Michigan State University
United States

86 Duke University
United States

87 University of California, San Diego
United States

88 North Carolina State University
United States

89 University of California, Irvine
United States

90 The University of British Columbia
Canada

91 University of Chicago
United States

92 Anna University
India

93 The University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong

94 Johns Hopkins University
United States

95 National Taiwan University
Taiwan

96 University of California, Davis
United States

97 Arizona State University
United States

98 Freie Universität Berlin
Germany

99 Universidad de Sevilla
Spain

100 Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Peru

02 December 2009

AFP Analysis: "Asia moves up university league table"

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hfjHdVEHOMBAY9e4I-DDKExDC59g

Asia moves up university league table

(AFP) Oct 8, 2009

LONDON

excerpts (see link above for full article):

>>US and British universities dominate the top of a league table of universities worldwide published Thursday, but Asian seats of learning are moving up the global rankings.<<

>>But Asian universities, while still struggling to break into the top 20, are moving upwards, with numbers in the top 200 growing in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Malaysia.<<

ARWU World Rankings not much better for Japan's universities

To sum up the ARWU results in terms of Japanese universities:

1. One institution makes the top 20--Tokyo University. However, Todai fell from 19 in 2008 to 20 this year.
2. Kyoto University is in the top 30 at 24, but slipped from 23 in 2008.
3. Osaka, Nagoya and Tohoku are all in the top 100, at 71, 82, and 84, respectively. Tokyo Institute of Technology, unlike the QS table, IS NOT in the top 100.
4. Todai and Kyodai are still considered the top two universities for the Asia/Pacific region, unlike the findings of the QS results, which puts Australian National University at 17, very much higher than the ARWU's rank of 59.

The ARWU top 20 is:

http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp

(Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2009)

World Rank Institution Region Regional Rank Country National Rank Score on Alumni Score on Award Score on HiCi Score on N&S Score on PUB Score on PCP Total Score

1
Harvard University
Americas 1 1 100 100 100 100 100 74.8 100
2
Stanford University
Americas 2 2 39 78.7 87.1 67.3 70.1 66.9 73.1
3
University of California, Berkeley
Americas 3 3 67.4 77.1 68.4 71.1 69 53.2 71.0
4
University of Cambridge
Europe 1 1 89.4 91.5 53.8 53.9 65.4 65.5 70.2
5
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Americas 4 4 71 80.6 65.7 67.9 62 54.4 69.5
6
California Institute of Technology
Americas 5 5 51.5 69.1 57.1 66.2 47.7 100 64.8
7
Columbia University
Americas 6 6 70.6 67.7 55.7 49.1 69.6 46.5 61.7
8
Princeton University
Americas 7 7 57.8 85.2 61.6 41.5 45.7 61.4 60.2
9
University of Chicago
Americas 8 8 65.8 84.3 49.7 38.6 51.6 41.8 57.0
10
University of Oxford
Europe 2 2 57.6 57.9 48.9 49.8 66.1 45.7 56.3
11
Yale University
Americas 9 9 49.8 43.6 57.6 55.7 62.7 49.5 55.2
12
Cornell University
Americas 10 10 40.5 51.3 54.3 51.7 61.2 39.9 53.1
13
University of California, Los Angeles
Americas 11 11 23.8 42.8 57.4 50.3 74.5 36.2 52.3
14
University of California, San Diego
Americas 12 12 15.5 35.9 60.3 53.9 65.2 48 50.7
15
University of Pennsylvania
Americas 13 13 30.9 34.4 57.6 44.1 69 39.8 49.3
16
University of Washington
Americas 14 14 25 31.8 53.3 48.8 73.7 28.1 48.0
17
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Americas 15 15 37.5 35.5 52.3 39.8 66.7 28.6 46.7
18
University of California, San Francisco
Americas 16 16 0 36.8 53.8 49.7 59.9 46.7 45.9
19
The Johns Hopkins University
Americas 17 17 44.7 27.8 41.7 49.1 67.1 24.9 45.2
20
The University of Tokyo
Asia/Pacific 1 1 34.1 14.1 42.9 49 79.7 34.1 45.1

remainder of Japan's top 100 entries follows:
-------------------
24
Kyoto University
Asia/Pacific 2 2 34.6 34.9 38.4 34.6 67.3 31 42.7

71
Osaka University
Asia/Pacific 5 3 10.9 0 26.2 27.8 62 28.3 27.8

82
Nagoya University
Asia/Pacific 7 4 25 14.1 16.2 22.6 48.1 25.9 26.0

84
Tohoku University
Asia/Pacific 8 5 16.4 0 21.8 22.3 59.7 27.5 25.8

Japan slips in QS-Times HE world rankings, no top 20 institutions

It's that time of year again--various university league tables and world rankings have been released. This requires analysis from the Japan HEO Blog from a Japan perspective.

From a Japan perspective, the news is MIXED. First, NO Japanese institution gets into this year's QS-Times HE top 20. On the other hand, there are more Japanese universities in the top 100.

At one point in the short history of these rankings, it looked like Japan's most well known university, Tokyo University (Todai), was going to make a run at the top 10, making it the true 'Harvard of the East'.

However, Todai has slipped out of the top 20 now. This could be explained by QS-Times HE changing their criteria some, with the changes penalizing non-Anglophone Todai and Japan. It might also, at least in part, be attributed to Todai's decreased ability to sponsor exchange with scholars and researchers overseas. And this decline could then be linked to overall less funding where it counts from the national government, now that the national universities (at the top of which heap Todai is always placed) are now administratively independent in the status of 'national university corporations' (NUCs)--at least somewhat, at least in theory, anyway. On the other hand, the fact that two other national universities have surged into the top 100 might indicate that the government is doing a better job in getting the NUCs to share the funding--perhaps. Perhaps one aspect worth a closer look is how Japan's elite private universities fared. None are in the top 100, but are any rising or entering the top 200? That is worth a future post here at the Japan HEO Blog.

Here are the results that are relevant to the discussion here. See the links for FULL information and all sorts of various rankings, analysis and the criteria. I have added, in the case of the Japanese institutions, last year's rank for comparison purposes.

http://www.topuniversities.com/
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2009/results



The top 20 (in which there is no Japanese university):

2009 rank School Name Country
Source: QS Quacquarelli Symonds (www.topuniversities.com)

1 HARVARD University United States
2 University of CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom
3 YALE University United States
4 UCL (University College London) United Kingdom
5= IMPERIAL College London United Kingdom
5= University of OXFORD United Kingdom
7 University of CHICAGO United States
8 PRINCETON University United States
9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States
10 California Institute of Technology United States
11 COLUMBIA University United States
12 University of PENNSYLVANIA United States
13 JOHNS HOPKINS University United States
14 DUKE University United States
15 CORNELL University United States
16 STANFORD University United States
17 AUSTRALIAN National University Australia
18 Mcgill University Canada
19 University of MICHIGAN United States
20= ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of T... Switzerland
20= University of EDINBURGH United Kingdom


22 University of TOKYO Japan (was 19 in 2008)

25 KYOTO University Japan (no change)

43= OSAKA University Japan (was 44 in 2008)
43= TRINITY College Dublin Ireland

55= TOKYO Institute of Technology Japan (was 61 in 2008)

92= NAGOYA University Japan (not in top 100 last year)

97 TOHOKU University Japan (not in top 100 last year)

Back to top

Back to top
Click on logo to go back to top page.