Another Ranking

An organisation called Eduroute has produced a ranking of universities by "web quality". The idea sounds interesting but we need to be given some more information.The top five are:

1. Harvard
2. MIT
3.  Cornell
4.  Stanford
5.  UC Berkeley

After that there are some surprises with National Taiwan University in 7th place, University of the Basque Country 16th, Sofia University 44th, Yildiz Technical University 57th.

The structure of these rankings is as follows:

Volume 20%  "The volume of information published is measure by a set of commands that run on the major search engines. "

Online scientific information  10%  "Eduroute measures this aspect through the search engines which specialize in publishing researches and scholarly articles and which search a university's website for all available publications."

Links quantity 30%:   "Here Eduroute measures the number of incoming links whether these links are from academic or nonacademic websites."

Quality of links and contents 40%:  "it was of great importance to measure this aspect of any website in order to reflect the true size of a university's website on the internet and to measure the degree in which the university is concerned with the quality of content it provides on its website."

This is rather vague and, since only rank order is given, there is no explanation for the high position of the University of the Basque Country, Yildiz Technical University and so on.

The location and personnel of Eduroute also remains mysterious. I did, however, receive this message

"Eduroute is an organization involved in determining rankings for universities. We pride ourselves in offering people with a true collection of information that will assist them when it comes to classifying universities and their rankings.


When coming up with rankings for universities we put into consideration several parameters in order to come up with as accurate a conclusion as possible. This methodology is frequently evaluated and improved on to obtain a solid benchmark that can cast a true reflection of rankings for universities. Eduroute focuses on studying universities’ websites. We believe that the support and investment a university inputs into its website is proportional to the degree of interaction of the website and its users (students, staff and lecturers). The volume and content of the university’s website is analysed while also putting into consideration the traffic flow to the website. The number of external links leading to the university’s website is also a key factor as it is a reflection of how popular the site is. Such parameters and more are useful while determining the rankings for universities. Educational institutions also have the opportunity of registering with us so as to be included in the rankings.

At Eduroute we put all our energies in ensuring the rankings for universities we offer are as accurate as possible. We believe this information is of vital importance both to the general public and to the universities and as such we offer a professional service that satisfies both parties.


Regards,

May Attia


Project Manager

www.eduroute.info"