Ranking Web (Webometrics) of Universities

Isidro F. Aguillo isidro.aguillo at CCHS.CSIC.ES
Fri Aug 31 13:18:39 EDT 2012 

Quoting Yves Gingras:

> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
> The vagueness of the indicator is here componded by the arbitrary
> ponderation: why 50%? Why not 10% for links and 80% for citations?

The ponderation is based in a model following a ratio 1:1 between activity and impact, so 50% for each. Basically it is he same ratio that everybody uses in bibliometrics between papers and citations. 

 This just
> confirms that a composite indicator of heterogeneous measures has no
> definite meaning. Also: is being ³linked to² or being ³visited by² many
> people really measuring something definite? 

Never, in no place we have defended the use of visits for the same reasons most of the people does not use journal circulation for scientific evaluation.

Linking is an intellectual action and if you are linking academic contents is because they are interesting or useful according to your criteria, If you are a scientist the motivations for linking are not far different that the ones for citing.

It seems here that numbers are
> used because they are available even though nobody knows what they mean
> exactly. We should strive to build indicators the meaning of which we
> control to make sure we can then understand they variation over time: we
> know a thermometer measures temperature and not humidity (for which we need
> a hygrometer) but if we we add (or multiply) one with the other we any
> precise informatino on temperature...

My hypothesis is that our "thermometer" is able to measure overall university performance. The empirical results correlate highly with other rankings including bibliometric ones; Harvard, MIT, Standford in top, Cambridge, Oxford, ETH Zurich heading Europe, Tokyo first in Asia or Sao Paulo first for Latinamerica.

Even more interesting we are able to identify reasons (web bad practices) for major discrepancies. And we can offer advice and our results are useful for many universities.

Best regards, 

> Best regards
>
>
> Yves Gingras
>
>
>
> Le 31/08/12 11:39, « Isidro F. Aguillo » <isidro.aguillo at CCHS.CSIC.ES> a
> écrit :
>
>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>> Dear Loet:
>>
>>  Not sure. My first candidate is the number of webeditors and the university
>> policies about contributors. 1000s scholars building rich personal pages are
>> far more effective than a well paid webmaster.
>>
>>  Also, do not forget that web publications is only 50% of the total. 
>> The other
>> 50% is impact or link visibility, ie the number of inlinks you received that
>> in the case of top universities means thousands of people linking 
>> ("citing" a
>> webpage) to the university webdomain.
>>
>>  Best,
>>
>>
>>  El 31/08/2012 16:32, Loet Leydesdorff escribió:
>>
>>
>>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html   Re: [SIGMETRICS] Ranking Web
>>> (Webometrics) of Universities
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Isidro,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Yet, the web-ranks may (partially) correlate with the budgets of the
>>> webmasters. J
>>>
>>> Could you test this?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Loet
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
>>> [mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Isidro F. Aguillo
>>>  Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 4:29 PM
>>>  To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>>>  Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Ranking Web (Webometrics) of Universities
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>> <http://web.utk.edu/%7Egwhitney/sigmetrics.html>
>>>
>>> Dear Yves:
>>>
>>>  There is no a single answer, but many possible candidate answers:
>>>
>>>  - Scientific discoveries should be communicated, preferably not 
>>> only to the
>>> scientists working at rich western organizations. Today Web is the most
>>> universal and cheaper scholarly communication tool. Ranking MEASURES the
>>> amount of new knowledge generated and how much is published in an open
>>> format.
>>>
>>>  - Most of the scientists are not only producing papers in formal
>>> international journals, but their activities are richer and 
>>> diverse. Ranking
>>> MEASURES all the outputs, formal and informal, if they publish them on the
>>> Web.
>>>
>>>  - Universities (specially public ones) are investing a lot, not only in
>>> research, but in other different missions. For example promoting distance
>>> learning (through web platforms), supplying information about their
>>> governance (transparency), attracting talented students and prestigious
>>> professors through internationalization of their web contents, supplying
>>> information of their technological developments in their specialized web
>>> portals and so on. Ranking MEASURES all these different activities if they
>>> are making public in the Web.
>>>
>>>  These are only a few examples.
>>>
>>>  El 31/08/2012 15:55, Yves Gingras escribió:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>>>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>>> <http://web.utk.edu/%7Egwhitney/sigmetrics.html>  These results show that
>>>> the ³indicator² is dubious and does not really indicate anything 
>>>> specific...
>>>> Instead of writing that the  use of web domains is ³penalizing their
>>>> position in the Ranking², one should instead conclude that using 
>>>> web domains
>>>> to ³rank² institutions is dubious since it misrepresent the 
>>>> reality: should
>>>> institutions adapt to indicators OR should indicators be adapted to the
>>>> reality of institutions???... Before multiplying ³indicators² maybe one
>>>> should first ask the basic question: ³what on earth does this thing really
>>>> MEASURE?²
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Yves Gingras
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Le 31/08/12 05:02, « Isidro F. Aguillo » <isidro.aguillo at CCHS.CSIC.ES>
>>>> <mailto:isidro.aguillo at CCHS.CSIC.ES>  a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>>>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>>> <http://web.utk.edu/%7Egwhitney/sigmetrics.html>
>>>>  El 31/08/2012 10:31, Clement Levallois escribió:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>>>> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>>>> <http://web.utk.edu/%7Egwhitney/sigmetrics.html>
>>>>
>>>>  Interesting!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  In the ranking for Europe, not a single French university in the 
>>>> 100 first?
>>>> Wow.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  (see here: http://www.webometrics.info/en/Ranking_Europe/European_Union)
>>>> <http://www.webometrics.info/en/Ranking_Europe/European_Union%29>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Best,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Clement
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  --------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>   Clement Levallois, PhD
>>>>   Erasmus University Rotterdam
>>>>   The Netherlands
>>>>
>>>>   pro website
>>>> <http://www.erim.eur.nl/ERIM/People/Person_Details?p_aff_id=4321>  /
>>>> personal website <http://www.clementlevallois.net/>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  twitter and skype: @seinecle
>>>>
>>>>  Discover the NESSHI project: http://www.nesshi.eu <http://www.nesshi.eu/>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dear all:
>>>>
>>>>   You can check the Excellence indicator (papers in the 10% top 
>>>> cited) that
>>>> Paris 6 is 28th and Paris XI is 98th so the reasons for the delayed ranks
>>>> are related to the web presence. Language is an important issue as
>>>> English-speaking countries are clearly over-represented but it is not the
>>>> only reason. Perhaps interesting to this list is that the 
>>>> commitment to open
>>>> access is limited. You can check the performance of the French university
>>>> repositories here:
>>>>
>>>>   http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/Europe/France
>>>>
>>>>   It is very surprising that in some cases they have surrendered their own
>>>> web domains in their "institutional" repositories. A few examples:
>>>>
>>>>   École Polytechnique    http://hal-polytechnique.archives-ouvertes.fr/
>>>>   Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
>>>> http://hal-paris1.archives-ouvertes.fr/
>>>>   École Mines ParisTech    http://hal-ensmp.archives-ouvertes.fr/
>>>>   Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis
>>>> http://hal-unice.archives-ouvertes.fr/
>>>>
>>>>   Of course this practice is penalizing their position in the Ranking.
>>>>
>>>>   Best,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Yves Gingras
>>>>
>>>>  Professeur
>>>>  Département d'histoire
>>>>  Centre interuniversitaire de recherche
>>>>  sur la science et la technologie (CIRST)
>>>>  Chaire de recherche du Canada en histoire
>>>>  et sociologie des sciences
>>>>  Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST)
>>>>  UQAM
>>>>  C.P. 8888, Succ. Centre-Ville
>>>>  Montréal, Québec
>>>>  Canada, H3C 3P8
>>>>
>>>>  Tel: (514)-987-3000-7053
>>>>  Fax: (514)-987-7726
>>>>
>>>>  http://www.chss.uqam.ca
>>>>  http://www.cirst.uqam.ca
>>>>  http://www.ost.uqam.ca
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
> Yves Gingras
>
> Professeur
> Département d'histoire
> Centre interuniversitaire de recherche
> sur la science et la technologie (CIRST)
> Chaire de recherche du Canada en histoire
> et sociologie des sciences
> Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST)
> UQAM
> C.P. 8888, Succ. Centre-Ville
> Montréal, Québec
> Canada, H3C 3P8
>
> Tel: (514)-987-3000-7053
> Fax: (514)-987-7726
>
> http://www.chss.uqam.ca
> http://www.cirst.uqam.ca
> http://www.ost.uqam.ca
>
>

-- 
Isidro F. Aguillo, HonPhD
Cybermetrics Lab (3C1). CCHS - CSIC
Albasanz, 26-28. 28037 Madrid. Spain

isidro.aguillo @ cchs.csic.es
www. webometrics.info
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