The UOC among the world's top 400 universities for computer science and the only Spanish online university ranked by Times Higher Education

The specialist British education journal Times Higher Education (THE) has included the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in a new list it has just published of the world's top 684 universities in the field of computer science. Out of a total of 1,258 institutions evaluated from around the world, the UOC qualified in the bracket for the best 301-400 universities, a result that puts it on a par with the UK’s Open University. It was also the only online university from Spain to make it into the ranking.

Other Catalan universities credited by the THE for their expertise in the field of computer science were the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (in the 126-150 bracket), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (251-300) and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (301-400).

On a national level only 25 of Spain's 84 universities made the list, and the UOC was the country's only online university to classify. The bracket occupied by the UOC also includes the Autonomous University of Madrid, the University of Murcia, the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Seville.

On Thursday 29 November the THE rankings also published its assessment of the world's 501 best universities for engineering and technology.

The UOC is also the only online university from Spain in the overall classification

Two months ago, on 26 September, the UOC broke into the Times Higher Education World University Rankings as the only online university to feature from Spain, and the twelfth highest placed of the thirty-eight Spanish universities included.

This success was based on an analysis the THE conducts in five areas in universities: teaching (weighting = 30%), research (30%), citations (30%), international outlook (7.5%) and industry income (2.5%). The UOC’s scores in each of these areas were: 12.8 for teaching, 12.5 for research, 71.3 for citations, 39.8 for international outlook, and 34.9 for industry income.

The THE ranking is considered one of the most prestigious and transparent classifications in the field of higher education, rivalled only by the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities and the QS World University Rankings. Of the 84 universities in Spain, only 38 appear in this year’s THE tables, while last year’s ranking included just 31 Spanish universities.  The University of Navarra is in the 251–300 bracket, the Autonomous University of Madrid in the 351–400 bracket, and the Complutense University of Madrid in the 401–500 bracket. Also appearing in the THE World University Rankings for the first time were the University of the Balearic Islands, the Universitat Jaume I, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and the Miguel Hernández University of Elche.

The ranking is once again headed by the British universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in first and second place respectively. Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology make up the rest of the top five.