Calcutta University (CU) has decided to collaborate with Google Scholar, which is a bibliographic database of Google, for better tracking of citation of published papers to perform better in the NIRF ranking next year.

Vice-Chancellor Sonali Chakroborty Banerjee has approached Google to help with the preparation.

Speaking to The Statesman, she said: “Research shows 22 per cent to 44 per cent improvement can be achieved through better tracking of citation of published papers. We will sit with dean of science and technology and other academics along with the Google Scholar team to improve our ranking. It depends on a formula. IITs follow the formula, so we also want to follow that. We hope to bag at least second place in the coming years. Thus I have called them to help us with the preparation.”

Banerjee added:  “This year they have done this through cross verification in each field. Our last minute hard work to compile the works that have been produced by the teachers and researchers in the university along with each and every data of the expenditure has helped us to bag the ranking. This time we only focused on the compilation of work produced in the university but could not get much time. So we have started the preparation for next year from now.”

The University of Calcutta (CU) bagged fifth rank in the University category of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) this year and 12th rank in the Overall category.

While many academics have raised questions about providing “manipulated data” to NIRF, the V-C said: “Google Scholar team has communicated with us multiple times for cross verification. There is no question of providing manipulated information. They recognised the university’s hard work and best performance. They have informed us that the performance could be better if we compiled the data and could place citations well. So with their reference we are trying to improve our presentation for further rankings.”

President Ram Nath Kovind announced NIRF 2019 rankings for Indian institutes at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi last month where Vice-Chancellors and their nominees were present to receive the awards. NIRF was approved and launched by the Minister of Human Resource Development in 2015.

The first NIRF ranks were announced in 2016. CU participated in 2017 and ranked 16 in the university category whereas they achieved fifth rank this year. The parameters on which the NIRF rankings are based are – Teaching, Learning and Resources, Research and Professional Practices, Graduation Outcomes, Outreach and Inclusivity, and Perception.