webometrics

Webometrics is a field of information science and scientometrics that analyzes the World Wide Web to measure and evaluate the online presence and perceived impact of academic institutions, researchers, and scholarly output. It combines quantitative indicators derived from publicly accessible web data to inform assessments of visibility, reach, and openness.

The term gained prominence with the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, launched in 2004 by the Cybermetrics Lab of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The ranking aims to promote open access to scientific information and to provide a global picture of how universities present themselves on the Web. It is published twice yearly and covers most countries and institutions with a web presence.

Methodology: The ranking uses three main indicators: Size (S), which reflects the total volume of pages and files published on the institution’s domain; Visibility (V), based on the number of external inlinks to the domain; and Richness (R), counting the number of rich media files such as PDFs, DOCs, and PPTs available on the site. These indicators are combined to produce a global score and an overall world ranking, along with country and subranking lists.

Applications and limitations: Webometrics data are used for benchmarking, strategic planning, and policy analysis by universities and researchers. Critics note biases toward larger or more web-friendly institutions, language and indexing biases, and the fact that web presence does not directly measure scholarly quality. The approach also depends on crawl and indexing technologies.

See also: Webometrics Ranking of World Universities; scientometrics; informetrics; open access.