Abstract:
The Quality Assurance Council (QAC) of the University Grants Commission of Sri
Lanka assesses how well universities meet quality standards and respond to the
needs of stakeholders in higher education. This process ensures that educational
offerings align with national and international standards. At the same time,
international ranking of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has attracted the
attention of many stakeholders of HEIs. This paper examines the relationship
between the research-related indicators of International Ranking Systems (IRS) and
the research criteria used in the Institutional Review (IR) process followed by Sri
Lankan universities. Based on this analysis, the study proposes strategies for
academic librarians to contribute to enhancing research excellence within these
institutions. The study focused on four major IRS namely, Times Higher Education
(THE) World University Ranking, Quacquarelli Symonds Ranking (QS),
University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), and SCImago Institutional
Ranking. Ranking methodology, indicators, and data sources were obtained from
the official websites of the ranking systems. Quality Assurance Institutional review
manual (2023) and IR scoring sheet (2019), were analyzed and compared with the
research performance criteria and methodologies of these ranking systems. Detailed mapping revealed that, 82.5% of THE research indicators matched with
IR standards, QS matched 50%, URAP matched 100% and SCImago matched 50%.
Concluding that IR includes the research related indicators expected by IRS. While
international rankings and the IR process have different focuses and methodologies,
both aim to enhance the quality and performance of higher education. Sri Lankan
universities can improve their research performance and align with IRS by
following IR criteria related to Postgraduate studies, research innovation and
commercialization. In this process, academic librarians can contribute to enhance
their institutions' research performance through various roles. They can embed
themselves in research projects, collaborate with faculty and provide specialized
support services - such as information literacy programs, access to high-quality
databases, collection development, conduct bibliometric and citation analyses,
support open access publishing, and oversee institutional and research repositories.
These activities ensure that researchers have the tools and resources needed to
improve research visibility and performance.
