Stanford's web impact ranks No. 2
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
Stanford placed second in a ranking of the websites for more than 14,000 universities around the world. The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, compiled by the Spain-based Cybermetrics Lab, seeks to measure "the performance and impact of universities through their Web presence."
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose OpenCourseWare project offers the world's largest collection of free teaching materials, ranked first. After Stanford, Harvard, the University of California-Berkeley and Cornell rounded out the top five. American institutions filled the top spots ahead of the University of Toronto, which ranked 24th.
A primary goal of the Cybermetrics Lab, a group within the National Research Council—the largest public research body in Spain—is to support electronic access to scientific publications and other academic materials.
"Web presence measures the activity and visibility of the institutions and it is a good indicator of impact and prestige of universities," Webometrics states on its homepage.
The rankings took into account four criteria, including the number of links to a university's website from other sites. Launched in 2004, the Webometrics rankings are updated every six months, with the most recent edition released in January.
In January 2008, Stanford ranked second; in July 2008, Stanford ranked third. More information is online at http://www.webometrics.info.
Share This Story