الملخص الإنجليزي
The study aimed to build a proposed strategy to develop the
performance of Omani universities in the light of the indicators of global
university rankings. To achieve this, the study explored the reality of the
performance of Omani universities in the application of classification
indicators, and identified the degree of difference in application between
public and private universities. It also examined the most prominent
challenges facing Omani universities in the application of these indicators
and proposed developmental solutions in preparation for the building of
proposed strategy.
The study relied on a descriptive method and a mixed-methods
approach was conducted combining quantitative and qualitative tools to
achieve the objectives of the study. The study used an explanatory
sequential design, where the questionnaire was initially applied to collect
data from a sample of 116 individuals representing the targeted Omani
public and private universities, then interviews were conducted with 19
individuals representing the same universities to dig deeper into the data
and obtain explanations of what the quantitative result showed.
The most notable results were that the level of application of the
indicators of global university rankings, as shown by the quantitative
result, came to a high degree at the general level of the questionnaire
domains (administrative, academic, research, and technological). While at
the level of the statements of the domains, the result revealed an average
level of some phrases such as the transparent disclosure of universities
about their administrative, financial and academic performance;
commitment of universities to internationally accepted standards of the
share of students to academics; attraction of international award holders
in their specializations; existence of exchange programs between
academics with local and international universities, and provision of
research sabbatical leave for academics.
The qualitative result agreed with the quantitative result in the
existence of the application of the indicators of the global university
rankings but differed in the level of this application. The interviews
showed a weakness in the level of application and interpreted the rise in
the quantitative result as expressing the efforts made as well as the
pressure of application on these institutions from the higher administrative
levels and not the actual reality of the degree of application. Additionally,
the interviews showed many short-comesin the application of indicators,
which explained the poor performance of Omani universities in the
ranking tables.
The most notable problems shown by the interviews in the
administrative side were: poor planning, complexities and administrative
authoritarianism. As for the academic side, the problems were: high share
of students to academics, high number of teaching hours, weakness of
academic exchange and high administrative burdens and committees. In
the research side, the problems were: insufficient spending on scientific
research and that the focus of Omani universities was more on teaching
than research. Finally, the technological side showed weakness in the
technological infrastructure in some Omani universities.
The result of the interviews also showed that the short-comesin the
application of the ranking indicators by Omani universities were the result
of a number of challenges, most notably: weak qualification of university
leaders, lack of clarity of policies in some universities, weak
diversification of sources of income, overloading work on academics in
administration and teaching, and delay in updating the websites of some
universities.
The study came out with a proposed strategy to improve the reality
and propose ways to overcome the challenges shown by the result of the
study to achieve the aspirations of Oman Vision 2040 related to raising
the level of Omani universities in the global ranking tables of ratings.
