Amoud University has Ranked at Position 2 in August 2016 amongst universities in Somalia and position 15129 in the World, according to the just-released Webometrics Ranking-http://www.webometrics.info/en/aw/somalia of Universities in the World. This is one position better than the January 2016 web ranking where Amoud featured at position 3 earlier this year. Amoud University is the oldest and most prestigious university in the entire Somaliland. It has made tremendous strides and improvements since its establishment in the academic year 1997/1998. In a different ranking done byhttp://www.4icu.org/so/ Amoud University emerged number 3 in July 2016. This university has almost a fairy tale story starting from a very humble beginning to achieving what it currently has, and achieving much higher than its set targets. At Amoud university, focus has shifted from simple teaching and learning to Research and Publications at the university which are now the two core functions of the university. It is envisaged to be a centre for research and innovation in Somaliland and indeed the region. Amoud started off with a modest population of 33 students and 3 teaching staff in 1998. This was after a group of founding members sat down and agreed upon starting up a university utilizing the infrastructure that existed out of the then Amoud Intermediate Secondary School.
Webometrics is the world’s most popular online ranking of all universities’ global performance which by July 2016 had ranked universities from all over the world based on data collected between July 1, 2016 to July 20, 2016. There are four parameters or indicators used in the webometrics web ranking including Presence Rank where Amoud University occupied position 18457; Impact rank where Amoud University occupied position 18164; Openness rank where Amoud University occupied position 4121 and Excellence Rank where Amoud University occupied position 4698. This websitewww.webometrics.info, ranks universities two times in each and every calendar year since its inception, during the months of January and August. This years web ranking results were published on August 2nd, 2016. In July 2016 Presence Rank was given a 10% weight, Visibility 50%, Openness 10% and excellence 30%.
Through the stewardship of Prof. Suleiman Ahmed Gulaid, Amoud university has turned around the perception of the local population in Somaliland from that of desperation and hopelessness brought about by the civilian war that plunged Somalia into a state of despair to that of hope, great vision of prosperity and a bright future through higher education. Initially, from the earlier days of its establishment the focus of the university administration was on setting up of undergraduate programmes which has predorminantly included Certificate courses, Diploma courses and Undergraduate Degrees in various filedds including Education, Business, Agriculture, Engineering, Information Technology, Shari and Law, Medicine, Laboratory Technology, Nursing and Midwifery, Pharmacy, Economics and Politicial Science and Dentistry. However, the administration changed gears in 2012 upon establishment of Amoud university School of Postgraduate Studies and Research, commonly referred to as AUSPGSR. Since then, many students have registered for Masters programmes and graduated with various Masters degrees from Amoud University. A potentially even higher number of students is prospectively expected to register this year in September 2016 for the courses offered such as Master of Business Administration(Finance and Accounting), Master of Education(Linguistics; Curriculum Development), Master of Science(Pure Mathematics; IT Management & Security), Master of Public Health(Epidemiology) and Master of Rural Development.
Prof. Suleiman A. Gulaid, President of Amoud University delivering a Speech at 15th Anniversary celebrations for AUCHS which was held in January 2016 at the College of Health Sciences in Amoud University, Borama.
Dr. Said Ahmed Walhad, the principal of Amoud University College of Health Sciences (AUCHS)has also made significant contributions towards the continued rise of Amoud University through the steady stewardship of the College of Health Sciences. Several Medical courses have been running there with competent Doctors, Nurses and medics from various other fields being produced from this school. Earlier this year we actually celebrated the successful training of the first Masters Degree students from AUCHS who came out with Masters degree in Family Medicine, a first in this part of the horn of Africa region. Amoud University College of Health Sciences runs several courses in collaboration with top level universities and other institutions in the world for example Dalarna University in Sweden which runs a joint course called Bachelors Science in Nursing degree. The courses are taught, supervised and examined jointly by the two universities in collaboration with each other.
At the initial point, the university had a programme in which postgraduate Masters students would be taught in specific time periods of the semesters by professors who were hired from abroad to come and teach for a given number of weeks where courses are compressed into a shorter time line then later on they get to follow up through correspondence and internet before resuming for another session of compressed face–to-face teaching period. The professors, all expartriates mostly from East African countries including Kenya and Uganda were therefore working at Amoud University through part-time mode. Several challenges were experienced with this approach and quickly the university administration then opted to change into a fully functional teaching and supervision system.
Dr. Said Ahmed Walhad, the Principal, College of Health Sciences of Amoud University addressing students during the celebrations for the 15th Year Anniversary for Amoud University College of Health Sciences operational existence in January 2016, in Borama.
Full-time staff were then hired to teach and supervise various Masters programmes at and for the university while stationed for not less than one academic year at the university main campus in Borama, Somaliland. A face to face approach was preferrable considering that quality of teaching and learning in addition to research and innovation have been the main focus for Amoud University. Several questions were answered by this approach such as quality of students who were to eventually graduate from the Masters programmes. Students who had a lot of problems with timely access to professors when in need of consultations found it less challenging as they(Masters thesis supervisors) were on all on site with dedicated close supervision at the students’ own beck and call. The university has therefore had a better run than it ever expected to the extent that in September of the year 2015, Amoud launched its Masters programmes in Hargeisa City, Somaliland. There has been a great demand for the quality teaching, learning, research and publication work going on at Amoud University. The university therefore brought these services closer to the people residing in Hargiesa City due to popular public demand and with greater focus on need to transform Somaliland and the horn of Africa region into a model destination for development through education, research and innovation.
Three years ago in 2014, there was a lot of concern from the general public that Amoud University was not ranking favourably at the top alongside the other universities particularly in Somaliland whereas it was the first ever institution of higher education to be established in Somaliland. The University administration then placed its focus on the implementation of a serious website policy that would shift its performance from its position outside the top ten universities to the best it could possibly be, the result of which are clearly visible today. This exercise may have been taken for granted then by most people but in reality it has not been an easy journey coming to attain this top position we currently are in. The plan is to rank even higher than the position today and compete regionally in East Africa and beyond, with all other academic giants in the Higher Education Instituions category. Amoud university website team embarked on a tough task of redesigning and redeveloping the website into a more professional and academic in 2014/2015. The president of Amoud University, Prof. Suleiman Ahmed Gulaid ordered for increased budgetary allocation for website maintenance and external communications in general. This deliberate action had an instant impact on the ranking of Amoud University with initial jump from position 23 in January 2014; to position 13 in July 2014; position 8 in January 2015; to position 5 in July 2015, position 3 in January 2016 and finally to its current position 2 in July 2016.
A lot of research and publication work is being done by the university as can be seen by the numerous publications available on our website. The web presence of the university has also grown exponentially with adoption of focused presence on of social media platforms, or what is popularly called web 2.0 such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, youtube and other yet to be unvelied platforms. In addition, the university has adopted a number of online tools for student registration, examination display and staff administration and management for example students currently moving from Freshman Class (Year One) into the Sophomore Academic Year are required to fill in their preferred courses online and not manually as was previously done. Students visit the online portal for this exercise and engage the office of the registrar in career choices in preparation for the coming Academic year September 2016/ July 2017.
The website of Amoud University is being maintained by an able team of experts under leadership of Amoud University Faculty of Computing and ICT. This team includes Khalid Abdirahman Hussein the WebMaster, Amoud University official website, Fahad Abdirahman the ICT Officer Amoud University and the brains behind the university student examination portal, plus the Sophomore course registration portal and Edwin Omondi Okech, Dean Faculty of Computing and ICT and one behind articles and social media communication. These persons have played a great role individually and collectively to bring Amoud University website to where it is today. Much more is expected of Amoud University in terms of research and publications and much more is set to be achieved particularly considering that in August 2016 alone, about 26 more students are expected to graduate with Masters Degrees in their various fields. There is either no other or very few universities in Somalia that rival Amoud University in terms of physical structures and facilties for learning, acreage of land available for university infrastructeral expansion at the main campus in Borama Town and number of high-calibre programmes running at the university including medical courses offered by Amoud University College of Health Sciences. Therefore much more is envisaged and much more is bound to be achieved in terms of favourable ranking in the coming editions of the ranking.