Webometrics Ranking of World Universities

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of Universities, is a ranking system for the world's universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web contents (number of web pages and files) and the visibility and impact of these web publications according to the number of external inlinks (site citations) they received. The ranking is published by the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) located in Madrid.

The aim of the Ranking is to improve the presence of the academic and research institutions on the Web and to promote the open access publication of scientific results.[1] The ranking started in 2004 and is updated every January and July. Today it provides Web indicators for more than 12,000 universities worldwide.

Objectives

The Webometrics University Ranking is a ranking system based on university web presence, visibility and web access.[2] This ranking system measures how strongly a university is present in the web by its own web domain, sub-pages, rich files, scholarly articles etc.[2] The central hypothesis of this approach is that web presence is a reliable indicator of the global performance and prestige of the universities and as such, is an indirect way to measure all the university missions (teaching, research, transfer). Although the Web is universally recognized as one of the most relevant tools for scholarly communication, it is still very rare these indicators are used for the evaluation of the scientific research and the academic performance of universities. Webometric indicators are provided to show the commitment of the institutions to Web publication.

A research paper in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Scientometrics found "reasonable similarities" between the Webometrics rankings and other prominent university rankings despite using a very different set of features to determine each university's rank. These similarities were increased when the comparison was limited solely to European universities.[3]

Top universities are publishing millions of pages produced by dozens of departments and services, hundreds of research teams and thousands of scholars. Strong web presence informs of a wide variety of factors that are clearly correlated with the global quality of the institution: widespread availability of computer resources available, global internet literacy, policies promoting democracy and freedom of speech, competition for international visibility or support of open access initiatives, among others.

Impact

In Namibia, the Webometrics list is frequently used in public interaction, particularly with respect to the country's two main state-funded institutions of tertiary education, the University of Namibia and the Polytechnic of Namibia.[4][5]

The 2009-2011 rankings have received significant press coverage and individual rankings have been published on the websites of universities in countries in the Middle East,[6] East Asia,[7][8] Canada[9] and Africa.[10]

Structure and contents

There are pages for several regional Rankings:

- Universities. The main worldwide list of 12000 universities build from a catalogue of over 19000 institutions is also offered as regional lists:

The distribution of the Universities by region (January 2012) is as follows:

Region Top 100 Top 200 Top 500 Top 1000 Total
North America 79 99 178 398 3485
Europe 16 66 212 415 4975
Asia 3 20 66 104 6142
Latin America 2 9 19 39 3487
Oceania 1 6 20 35 149
Arab World 0 0 2 4 569
Africa 0 0 3 5 355
World 19161

- Research Institutes. Top 2000 from a catalogue of over 7000 are published

Top 50 world universities in the July 2011 ranking

World Rank Name Country Size Visibility Rich Scholar
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology  United States 1 1 3 5
2 Harvard University  United States 2 3 15 1
3 Stanford University  United States 4 2 1 14
4 Cornell University  United States 3 5 11 18
5 University of California, Berkeley  United States 5 4 4 26
6 University of Michigan  United States 7 7 13 12
7 University of Wisconsin–Madison  United States 6 6 7 50
8 University of Washington  United States 9 16 2 27
9 University of Minnesota  United States 10 18 5 7
10 University of Pennsylvania  United States 8 9 32 15
11 University of Texas at Austin  United States 20 12 9 64
12 Columbia University  United States 12 11 25 54
13 California Institute of Technology  United States 15 8 43 56
14 University of California, Los Angeles  United States 21 13 22 48
15 Johns Hopkins University  United States 25 45 47 2
16 University of Cambridge  United Kingdom 18 14 50 49
17 University of Maryland  United States 39 26 16 35
18 University of Florida  United States 16 37 10 51
19 University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign  United States 72 10 34 92
20 Texas A&M University  United States 33 30 12 60
21 Carnegie Mellon University  United States 28 29 8 105
22 Michigan State University  United States 14 32 14 116
23 Purdue University  United States 45 33 18 36
24 National Taiwan University  Taiwan 11 50 28 3
25 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill  United States 30 23 19 93
26 Pennsylvania State University  United States 42 35 6 114
27 University of Oxford  United Kingdom 44 24 40 44
28 Yale University  United States 24 17 77 103
29 University of Chicago  United States 61 20 70 46
30 New York University  United States 38 28 31 94
31 Rutgers University  United States 26 44 17 68
32 University of Toronto  Canada 40 47 39 6
33 University of British Columbia  Canada 58 36 42 32
34 University of Tokyo  Japan 17 46 45 28
35 University of Pittsburgh  United States 97 38 41 8
36 University of California, San Diego  United States 46 43 26 67
37 Duke University  United States 48 39 27 81
38 University of Arizona  United States 43 41 24 99
39 Princeton University  United States 78 22 49 131
40 University of Southern California  United States 62 34 63 63
41 University of Virginia  United States 37 27 57 221
42 Simon Fraser University  Canada 152 19 92 76
43 University of São Paulo  Brazil 13 111 21 76
44 University of Southampton  United Kingdom 196 21 110 43
45 University of California, Davis  United States 53 48 35 82
46 University College London  United Kingdom 113 49 65 17
47 North Carolina State University  United States 41 60 33 69
48 Georgia Institute of Technology  United States 106 62 36 20
49 National Autonomous University of Mexico  Mexico 23 108 38 10
50 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University  United States 75 53 66 61

2009 rankings

January

Rank University Country
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology  United States
2 Stanford University  United States
3 Harvard University  United States
4 University of California at Berkeley  United States
5 Cornell University  United States
6 University of Michigan  United States
7 California Institute of Technology  United States
8 University of Minnesota  United States
9 University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign  United States
10 University of Texas at Austin  United States

July

Rank University Country
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology  United States
2 Harvard University  United States
3 Stanford University  United States
4 University of California at Berkeley  United States
5 Cornell University  United States
6 University of Wisconsin at Madison  United States
7 University of Minnesota  United States
8 California Institute of Technology  United States
9 University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign  United States
10 University of Michigan  United States

Authorship

The Webometrics Ranking is produced by the Cybermetrics Lab, a unit of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the main public research body in Spain. The Lab acts as an Observatory of the Science and Technology on the Web. Isidro F. Aguillo, Hon.PhD, is the head of the Laboratory and the editor-in-chief of the Rankings.

Notes and references

  1. ↑ "In The Know: Webometrics Ranking of World Universities". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 6 September 2011. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Webometrics ranking". webometrics.info. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  3. ↑ Aguillo et al. (February 23, 2010). "Comparing university rankings". Scientometrics. Akadémiai Kiadó, co-published with Springer Science+Business Media B.V., Formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  4. ↑ Enos Kiremire (21 August 2009). "African University Ranking Sub-Saharan Africa: (July 2009: University of Namibia)". New Era.
  5. ↑ Enos Kiremire (12 March 2010). "Unam could move to top 10". New Era.
  6. ↑ "Webometrics' Ranking Reflects King Saud University's Significant International Presence". King Saud University. 2 August 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  7. ↑ "Webometrics Web Ranking 2011: National Taiwan University Top In Asia". Asian Scientist. 2 August 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  8. ↑ "NCKU Ranks 80th in Webometrics Ranking of World Universities". National Cheung Kung University. 20 February 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  9. ↑ "Université de Montréal among Webometrics Ranking of World Universities". Universite de Montreal. 17 February 2009. Archived from the original on 9 June 2011. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  10. ↑ Peterking Quaye (1 March 2011). "Liberian Universities appearance in Webometrics ranking of World's Universities". Shout Africa. Retrieved 19 January 2012.

External links