Thelwall M. " A comparison of sources of links for academic Web impact factor calculations" Journal of Documentation 58(1):66-78 2002

[Eugene Garfield]

Mike Thelwall  : m.thelwall at wlv.ac.uk


TITLE     A comparison of sources of links for academic
          Web impact factor calculations

AUTHOR    Thelwall M

JOURNAL   JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION 58 (1): 66-78 2002

 Document type: Article    Language: English
 Cited References: 20      Times Cited: 0


Abstract:
There has been much recent interest in extracting information from
collections of Web links. One tool that has been used is Ingwersens Web
impact factor. It has been demonstrated that several versions of this metric
can produce results that correlate with research ratings of British
universities showing that, despite being a measure of a purely Internet
phenomenon, the results are susceptible to a wider interpretation. This
paper addresses the question of which is the best possible domain to count
backlinks from, if research is the focus of interest. WFs for British
universities calculated from several different source domains are compared,
primarily the .edu. ac.uk and .uk domains, and the entire Web. The results
show that all four areas produce WIFs that correlate strongly with research
ratings, but that none produce incontestably superior figures. It was also
found that the WIF was less able to differentiate in more homogeneous
subsets of universities, although positive results are still possible.

Author Keywords:
Internet, information retrieval

KeyWords Plus:
CITATION, INFORMATION

Addresses:
Thelwall M, Wolverhampton Univ, Sch Comp & Informat Technol, Wolverhampton
WV1 1DJ, W Midlands, England
Wolverhampton Univ, Sch Comp & Informat Technol, Wolverhampton WV1 1DJ, W
Midlands, England

Publisher:
EMERALD, BRADFORD

IDS Number:
560YL

ISSN:
0022-0418


 Cited Author            Cited Work                Volume      Page   Year

 *ICANN                DOM NAM SUPP ORG ICA                            2001
 *MAYF U CONS          TIMES HIGHER ED 0414                    R2      2000
 *NOBL PUBL CO         NOBL HIGH ED FIN YB                             1999
 BARILAN J             SCIENTOMETRICS                50         7      2001
 BJORNEBORN L          SCIENTOMETRICS                50        65      2001
 CRONIN B              J INFORM SCI                  27         1      2001
 EGGHE L               J INFORM SCI                  26       329      2000
 HOLMES A              INFORMATION RES                6                2001
 INGWERSEN P           J DOC                         54       236      1998
 LARSON RR             P 59 ANN M ASIS 96                              1996
 LAWRENCE S            NATURE                       400       107      1999
 OPPENHEIM C           J DOC                         53       477      1997
 SMITH AG              J DOC                         55       577      1999
 SNYDER H              J DOC                         55       375      1999
 THELWALL M            CYBERMETRICS                   5                2001
 THELWALL M            IN PRESS J AM SOC IN                            2002
 THELWALL M            J DOC                         57       177      2001
 THELWALL M            J DOC                         56       185      2000
 THOMAS O              J INFORM SCI                  26       421      2000
 WARNER J              J INFORM SCI                  26       453      2000