FW: [OACI Working Group] more on the web impact factor (fwd)

[Eugene Garfield]

Colleagues:

In the new updated version of the Webometrics Ranking of World
Universities, corresponding to data obatained during January 2006, we
have added  Web Impact Factor values to each one of the Top 3000
Universities. For those of you interested, the numbers were obtained
from Yahoo and MSN search engines combining values for number of
external inlinks (visibility) and number of webpages (size). Please
check the site:

http://www.webometrics.info

Comments are welcomed,

Stevan Harnad wrote:

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:52:11 -0500
>From: Peter Suber <peters at earlham.edu>
>To: oaci-working-group at mailhost.soros.org
>Subject: [OACI Working Group] more on the web impact factor
>
>Friends,
>
>Alireza Noruzi, "The Web Impact Factor : a critical review," The
Electronic
>Library 24 (2006).  Self-archived February 9, 2006.
>http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00005543/
>
>Abstract:  We analyse the link-based web site impact measure known as
the
>Web Impact Factor (WIF). It is a quantitative tool for evaluating and
>ranking web sites, top-level domains and sub-domains. We also discuss
the
>WIF's advantages and disadvantages, data collection problems, and
validity
>and reliability of WIF results. A key to webometric studies has been
the
>use of large-scale search engines, such as Yahoo and AltaVista that
allow
>measurements to be made of the total number of pages in a web site and
the
>total number of backlinks to the web site. These search engines provide
>similar possibilities for the investigation of links between web
>sites/pages to those provided by the academic journals citation
databases
>from the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI). But the content of
the
>Web is not of the same nature and quality as the databases maintained
by
>the ISI. This paper reviews how the WIF has been developed and applied.
It
>has been suggested that Web Impact Factors can be calculated as a way
of
>comparing the attractiveness of web sites or domains on the Web. It is
>concluded that, while the WIF is arguably useful for quantitative
>intra-country comparison, application beyond this (i.e., to
inter-country
>assessment) has little value. The paper attempts to make a critical
review
>over literature on the WIF and associated indicators.
>
>        Peter
>
>Visit the List Archives at:
>
>http://mailhost.soros.org/pipermail/oaci-working-group/
>
>
>

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