THE UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas was the only Philippine institution recognized in the pilot edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Online Learning Rankings (OLR), which measures the teaching excellence of schools’ online programs.
The Dominican-run University received the silver recognition out of three categories, namely gold, silver and bronze.
Intramuros-based Mapúa University settled for a reporter status, which was assigned to institutions that met the criteria but failed to receive at least 50 valid survey responses or missed more than two metrics.
The University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University, schools that consistently earn rankings in other assessments, were not covered.
THE OLR categorized academic institutions in a hierarchical approach unlike its other ranking systems that use rank positions and scores to “ensure fair representation for all institutions.”
“Online learning has been a growing trend in higher education for many years. The Covid-19 pandemic drove the demand for online learning exponentially. However, there is no global standard on how to measure the teaching quality of higher education delivered online. The Times Higher Education Online Learning Rankings 2024 is the first attempt to measure online learning on a global basis,” THE said.
The ranked institutions were evaluated based on four main pillars: resources devoted to online learning (35%); level of student engagement in online learning (25%); outcomes for students participating in online learning (15%); and the environment in which the online learning takes place (25%).
The España-based school performed best in engagement with a score of 66.0, followed by outcomes (50.5); environment (50.3); and resources (49.4).
Students enrolled in online academic programs were invited to complete an online survey that asked questions about their educational experiences and basic demographic. Schools that participated in the OLR were asked to submit their institutional data via an online portal between April and June 2024 and to present data from either the financial year, calendar year or academic year that ended in 2022.
Launched in 2024, THE OLR seeks to assess university programs that are advertised as “online” and institutions that have at least 40% of the course content delivered online.
A total of 120 institutions participated in the newly-launched assessment worldwide. Eleven of them were placed in the gold category, 14 in silver, 31 in bronze and 64 were given a reporter status. F
