The rankings are one of the several drivers of quality improvement of the system institiuted by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and powered by the League of Directors of Academic Planning (LDAPs) of all universities in Nigeria. It is one of the several projects of Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, the Executive Secretary of NUC and implemented under the auspices of the NUC Strategy Advisory Committee (STRADVCOM). Twelve indicators were agreed by national consensus of the league of Directors of Academic Planning and Vice-Chancellors. These are:

• Student-Teacher Ratio – The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) students in the university divided by the number of fulltime teachers in the institution.
• Percentage of Female Students – This is calculated by dividing the number of female FTE students by the total FTE, expressed as a percentage.
• Percentage of Full Professors – This is a measure of the quality of staff and is calculated by dividing the total number of full professors in the university by the total number of full-time academic staff, expressed as a percentage.
• Percentage of International Staff – This is the proportion of the academic staff of the university who are non-Nigerians. It is designed to measure how well the university is able to attract and retain expatriate staff.
• Percentage of International Students – This is the proportion of the students in the university who are non-Nigerians. This indicator measures how well the university is able to attract foreign students.
• Percentage of Programmes with FULL accreditation – This is to measure the overall academic standing of the university. It is computed by dividing the number of academic programs of the university with full accreditation status by the total number of programs offered by the university and expressing this as a percentage. 
• Efficiency – This is measured as student completion rate which is a measure of the internal efficiency of the university. Efficiency (student completion rate) for 2020 is calculated by dividing the number of students who graduated in 2020 (for the cohort that enrolled in 2016) by the total number of students in the graduating class of 2020.
• ALL Citations Per Capita – This is a measure of average scholarly citations for the university as indexed in Google Scholar. It is calculated by summing the total Google Scholar citations for staff of the university who have Google Scholar presence and dividing by the number of such staff.
• H-index Per Capita (aligned with 2021 AD-Scientific ranking) – This is another (complementary) measure of average scholarly citations for the university as indexed in Google Scholar. It is calculated by summing the total h-index citations for staff of the university who have Google Scholar presence and dividing by the number of such staff.
• i-10 index Per Capita – This is another (complementary) measure of average scholarly citations for the university as indexed in Google Scholar. It is calculated by summing the total i-10-index citations for staff of the university who have Google Scholar presence and dividing by the number of such staff.
• Google Scholar Presence – This is the percentage of staff in the university with Google Scholar presence. It is calculated by dividing academic staff who are enrolled in Google Scholar by the total number of academic staff in the university, expressed as a percentage. 
• Contribution to Knowledge Economy – Graduates produced by a university and research output from staff are key elements in the knowledge economy enterprise. This indicator is computed by adding efficiency scores (graduate output) and all three per capita Google scholar scores.