Comments on: New webometrics ranking of world universities released http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/ Comments on the library and information science world Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:13:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 By: kelvin http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-562 kelvin Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:03:54 +0000 http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-562 Web is an important indicator while research and teaching excellence are critical to world great universities! Web is an important indicator while research and teaching excellence are critical to world great universities!

]]> By: Isidro F. Aguillo http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-560 Isidro F. Aguillo Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:43:49 +0000 http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-560 Of course we are open to criticism and to suggestions for improvement. As a research piece we are working of fine tuning the Ranking and you can expect a major refinement on the visibility indicator in the next edition. There are currently two sources of misunderstanding in our rankings: Digital Divide, as some institutions are not working as expected on the Web (Caltech, Cambridge, French!), but this is a very interesting result of our effort. And non-university institutions as we intend to include other higher education institutions. If you find secondary education institutions please inform us. Of course we are open to criticism and to suggestions for improvement. As a research piece we are working of fine tuning the Ranking and you can expect a major refinement on the visibility indicator in the next edition. There are currently two sources of misunderstanding in our rankings: Digital Divide, as some institutions are not working as expected on the Web (Caltech, Cambridge, French!), but this is a very interesting result of our effort. And non-university institutions as we intend to include other higher education institutions. If you find secondary education institutions please inform us.

]]> By: WoW!ter http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-553 WoW!ter Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:22:04 +0000 http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-553 @ Isidoro, Yes I do take the Web seriously, and the presence of universities at the Web as well. However, I think that the results of the Webometrics ranking of World Universities are a bit coarse to say the least. @ Isidoro,
Yes I do take the Web seriously, and the presence of universities at the Web as well. However, I think that the results of the Webometrics ranking of World Universities are a bit coarse to say the least.

]]> By: Alvaro Roldán http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-535 Alvaro Roldán Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:25:14 +0000 http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-535 You can read Isidro's response in <a href="http://www.bibliometria.com/ranking-web-de-universidades-del-mundo-edicion-de-julio-de-2008#comment-29569" rel="nofollow">this comment</a> You can read Isidro’s response in this comment

]]> By: Isidro F. Aguillo http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-533 Isidro F. Aguillo Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:53:19 +0000 http://wowter.net/2008/07/29/new-webometrics-ranking-of-world-universities-released/#comment-533 Thank you for your critical comments. The keyword here is feasibility. For a complete and precise description of world universities we will need several dozens of variables and a high level of standardization of such variables (what is a professor in different countries?). Moreover for many of these variables there is no reliable source even from the own university. This is the reason other Rankings usually focus on Top 200 or Top 500 institutions. When checking ARWU (Shanghai) or THES (Times) some of the variables are not very useful for ranking large sets. Consider there are only a few universities with 2 or more Nobel Prizes, so ranking with low numbers is not fair. This is can explain the lack of reliability of positions below 200 in the cited rankings. So, why web ranking? First, the numbers involved are far larger, millions instead of hundreds; Second, it is easier to obtain data for institutions worldwide: Webometrics rank 16000 universities including most of the developing countries not included in other rankings; Third, Web reflects (or at least should in the near future) the full set of activities of an academic institution (teaching, research, transfer, community involvement), not only number of papers published. Probably there is a lot of "noise" but there are certainly very important aspects of this noise for candidate students (sports!) or other citizens (general knowledge, half of the faculty members came from Hunmanities and Social Sciences) not very prone to publication; Fourth, Web is reaching hundreds of millions (paper thousands at the best). Electronic publication should be mandatory, or at least an evaluation system should take it very seriously. Webometrics is paving such road. Regarding methodology, it is possible to use crawlers instead of search engines, but this is unfeasible for such a large task. Moreover, most of the users use Google and Co. for recovering information, so if you information are not in that databases it is invisible, it does not exist. For avoiding inconsistencies we choose specific data centers, not the central webservers, collect the figures twice, correct the biased results and select the most relevant formats. Of course there are problems with Scholar, but we have contacted with them and they will provide new tools in the non-beta version. Finally not to forget the results. Webometrics ranks highly with THES & ARWU (0.6-0.7), provide useful insights about crazy web policies (Imperial College, Paris & Catalonian Universities, Johns Hopkins, ..) or great repository initiatives (Penn State, Linkoping, Complutense). Please, take the Web seriously Thank you for your critical comments. The keyword here is feasibility. For a complete and precise description of world universities we will need several dozens of variables and a high level of standardization of such variables (what is a professor in different countries?). Moreover for many of these variables there is no reliable source even from the own university. This is the reason other Rankings usually focus on Top 200 or Top 500 institutions.

When checking ARWU (Shanghai) or THES (Times) some of the variables are not very useful for ranking large sets. Consider there are only a few universities with 2 or more Nobel Prizes, so ranking with low numbers is not fair. This is can explain the lack of reliability of positions below 200 in the cited rankings.

So, why web ranking? First, the numbers involved are far larger, millions instead of hundreds; Second, it is easier to obtain data for institutions worldwide: Webometrics rank 16000 universities including most of the developing countries not included in other rankings; Third, Web reflects (or at least should in the near future) the full set of activities of an academic institution (teaching, research, transfer, community involvement), not only number of papers published. Probably there is a lot of “noise” but there are certainly very important aspects of this noise for candidate students (sports!) or other citizens (general knowledge, half of the faculty members came from Hunmanities and Social Sciences) not very prone to publication; Fourth, Web is reaching hundreds of millions (paper thousands at the best). Electronic publication should be mandatory, or at least an evaluation system should take it very seriously. Webometrics is paving such road.

Regarding methodology, it is possible to use crawlers instead of search engines, but this is unfeasible for such a large task. Moreover, most of the users use Google and Co. for recovering information, so if you information are not in that databases it is invisible, it does not exist. For avoiding inconsistencies we choose specific data centers, not the central webservers, collect the figures twice, correct the biased results and select the most relevant formats. Of course there are problems with Scholar, but we have contacted with them and they will provide new tools in the non-beta version.

Finally not to forget the results. Webometrics ranks highly with THES & ARWU (0.6-0.7), provide useful insights about crazy web policies (Imperial College, Paris & Catalonian Universities, Johns Hopkins, ..) or great repository initiatives (Penn State, Linkoping, Complutense).

Please, take the Web seriously

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