Title
Exploring the web visibility of world-class universities
Abstract
With the rapid development of the Internet, there is a need for evaluating the public visibility of universities on the Internet (i.e., web visibility) in terms of its implications for university management, planning, and governance. The data were collected in December 2010 by using Yahoo, one of the most widely used search engines. Specifically, we gathered "Single Mention" data to measure the number of times that each university was mentioned on websites. In addition, we collected network-based data on Single Mentions. We obtained another data set based on the 2010 world university rankings by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). We employed several analytical methods for the analysis, including correlations, nonparametric tests (e.g., the Mann---Whitney test), and multidimensional scaling (MDS). The significant positive correlation between university rankings and web visibility suggests that indicators of web visibility can function as a proxy measure of conventional university rankings. Another distinctive implication can be drawn from the pattern of a disparity in web visibility stemming from the linguistic divide, that is, universities in English-speaking countries dominated the central positions in various network structures of web visibility, whereas those in non-English-speaking countries were located in the periphery of these structures. In this regard, further research linking web visibility to university management, planning, and governance is needed.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1007/s11192-011-0515-6
Scientometrics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Web visibility,Webometrics,World university rankings
Proxy (climate),Data mining,World Wide Web,Corporate governance,Visibility,Multidimensional scaling,Computer science,Positive correlation,Network structure,Webometrics,The Internet
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
90
1
0138-9130
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
0.56
19
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Moosung Lee180.56
Han Woo Park276057.84