Ranking Web of Universities of the World: July Edition, 2008

[Isidro F. Aguillo]

Just published the second edition of 2008 of the Ranking Web of 
Universities of the world (http://www.webometrics.info/), confirming 
that the North American universities (included the Canadians) still 
maintain an important digital academic divide with the European 
universities.

In the publication corresponding to July, the Laboratory of Cibermetría, 
of the Spanish Research Council, the Ranking has increased the world 
coverage and gives more attention to the developing countries, 
especially to the Latin-American, African institutions and of those the 
Arab world.

Among the Top 200 universities nothing less than 123 are North American 
(106 from USA), whereas the Europeans place only 61 universities. Asia - 
Pacific has 14 universities in the group and Latin America only two 
completing this elite.

The best ranked universities are basically the same as the MIT leads the 
ranking followed by the Universities of Harvard and Stanford. Other 
important Universities as Berkeley, Cornell or Toronto also appear among 
the first ones. Nevertheless, Caltech or Johns Hopkins remained slightly 
relegated due to inadequate web policies.

Among the European universities, Germany, taking into account the number 
of universities among the best, is the leading country, but the British 
and Nordic universities are the outstanding ones. The University of 
Cambridge is the first European university (26),  followed by the Swiss 
Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which advances up to the 
position 32 and overcomes to the universities of Helsinki and Oxford, in 
the positions 42 and 47 of the classification, respectively.

To point out some positions, we highlight the Vienna or Prague 
Universities, but also the absence of French institutions or the delayed 
position of the Imperial College, again due to practices that penalize 
its Web position.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the first ranked is the Australian National 
University (42), followed by University of Tokyo (54) and the National 
Taiwan University (70). As usual Australian, Japanese, Hong Kong and 
Singapore universities are well represented, but Chinese ones are 
closing the gap.

Latin America maintains the two usual leaders, but the UNAM climbs up to 
the position number 51, a relevant change from previous number 59. The 
second one is the University of Sao Paulo, in the position number 113.

-- 
****************************
Isidro F. Aguillo
Laboratorio de Cibermetría
Cybermetrics Lab
CCHS - CSIC
Joaquin Costa, 22
28002 Madrid. Spain

isidro @ cindoc.csic.es
+34-91-5635482 ext 313
****************************