Post, Predict, and Rank: Exploring the Relationship Between Social Media Strategy and Higher Education Institution Rankings
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Related Work
3. Towards a Universal Ranking Standard
3.1. World University Rankings
3.2. Similarity Metrics
Results
4. Data Collection and Preprocessing
5. Exploratory Data Analysis
6. Post Categorization
- Image—which encompasses the external image of the HEI, including its reputation, branding, and public perception.
- Education—relates to the institution’s role in providing educational services, including its operations involving students, faculty, and academic programs.
- Research—covers activities that top-ranked HEIs are expected to pursue to maintain and foster their international status, such as scholarly research and innovation.
- Society—includes posts that communicate with the broader community, or provide information on topics of general interest related to the HEI and its broader context and/or to society.
- Engagement—focuses on the effort of the institution to interact with its audience, fostering connections and promoting engagement through comments, shares, favorites, and other forms of active participation on social media platforms.
6.1. Search Topic and Manual Topic Refinement
- Education: faculty, students, professors, courses, curriculum, teaching, classes, lecture, learning, degrees, enrollment, education, academics, exams, internships;
- Society: community, event, announcement, public, outreach, ceremony, celebration, congratulations, initiative, volunteer, charity, society, networking, support, collaboration;
- Engagement: welcome, join, participate, share, connect, engage, follow, celebrate, communicate, discuss, contribute, engage, network, respond, invite;
- Image: reputation, history, recognition, prestige, excellence, leadership, innovation, influence, legacy, status, accreditation, visibility, ranking, image, distinction;
- Research: study, findings, analysis, discovery, experiment, investigation, innovation, publication, data, breakthrough, research, development, researcher, insights, results.
Analysis of Assigned Topics
7. Predictive Modeling
End-of-Month Prediction Insights
8. Conclusions
Limitations and Future Work
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Higher Education Institution | CWUR |
---|---|
Harvard University | 1 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 2 |
Stanford University | 3 |
University of Cambridge | 4 |
University of Oxford | 5 |
Yale University | 10 |
University of California, Los Angeles | 18 |
Duke University | 20 |
University of Manchester | 50 |
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | 96 |
University of Göttingen | 97 |
University of California, Santa Barbara | 98 |
Trinity College Dublin | 247 |
University of Leicester | 248 |
Complutense University of Madrid | 249 |
University of Porto | 309 |
University of Coimbra | 420 |
West Virginia University | 501 |
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Rocha, B.; Figueira, Á. Post, Predict, and Rank: Exploring the Relationship Between Social Media Strategy and Higher Education Institution Rankings. Informatics 2025, 12, 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics12010006
Rocha B, Figueira Á. Post, Predict, and Rank: Exploring the Relationship Between Social Media Strategy and Higher Education Institution Rankings. Informatics. 2025; 12(1):6. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics12010006
Chicago/Turabian StyleRocha, Bruna, and Álvaro Figueira. 2025. "Post, Predict, and Rank: Exploring the Relationship Between Social Media Strategy and Higher Education Institution Rankings" Informatics 12, no. 1: 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics12010006
APA StyleRocha, B., & Figueira, Á. (2025). Post, Predict, and Rank: Exploring the Relationship Between Social Media Strategy and Higher Education Institution Rankings. Informatics, 12(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics12010006