Analysis of university online reputation-visibility. The case of Spanish public universities

ABSTRACT

University reputation is a key element of the institutional strategy, and it is affected by the development of the Internet and digital media as a place for debate and exchange of views. Reputation is the common perception of an object or person, and the Internet is the place where most communication takes place today, so the purpose of this work is to carry out an analysis of the reputation of Spanish public universities in the online environment. The behaviour of Spanish public universities and their repercussions in different media (Twitter, forum, blogs, news websites) are analysed. The main results indicate that notoriety is correlated with the research activity indicators of the universities. From the results obtained, it is possible to formulate some recommendations addressed to university management and administration to promote scientific dissemination and improve the communication of the institutions in such a way that their global reputation may benefit.

KEYWORDS:

• University reputation
• research activity
• institutional performance
• benchmarking
• social media
• communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by FEDER/JUNTA DE ANDALUCÍA-CONSEJERÍA DE UNIVERSIDAD, INVESTIGACIÓN E INNOVACIÓN (Andalucía-SPAIN), research project P20-01019; and by the National Plan of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, research project PID2019-109127RB-I00.