Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Patterns of national and international Web inlinks to US academic departments: An analysis of disciplinary variations

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

An investigation of links to 89 US academic departments from three different disciplines gave insights into the kinds of international regions and national domains that linked to them. While significant correlations were found between total counts of international inlinks and total publication impact in Psychology and Chemistry, counts of international inlinks to History departments were too small to give a significant result. The correlations suggest that international links may reflect, to a certain extent, patterns of scholarly communication. Even though History departments attracted a significantly lower percentage of international inlinks than those of Chemistry and Psychology, the main source of links for all three disciplines was from Europe. Analyses of national inlinks, characterized by gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains), showed that the major source of links for all disciplines was .edu sites, followed by .com, .org, .net. As a whole, international regional differences in disciplines were stronger than gTLD differences, although in both cases discrepancies were not of a large scale.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aguillo, I. F. (1998), STM information on the Web and the development of new Internet R&D databases and indicators. In: Online Information 98: Proceedings. Learned Information, pp. 239-243.

  • Almind, T. C., Ingwersen, P. (1997), Informetric analyses on the world wide Web: methodological approaches to ‘Webometrics’. Journal of Documentation, 53(4): 404-426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bar-Ilan, J. (2001), Data collection methods on the web for informetric purposes — A review and analysis, Scientometrics, 50(1): 7-32.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • BjÖrneborn, L., Ingwersen, P. (2001), Perspectives of webometrics, Scientometrics, 50(1): 65-82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borgman, C., Furner, J. (2002), Scholarly communication and bibliometrics. In: Cronin, B. (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Medford, NJ: Information Today Inc, 36: 3-72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cronin, B. (2001), Bibliometrics and beyond: Some thoughts on web-based citation analysis. Journal of Information Science, 27(1): 1-7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Furner, J., Ellis, D., Willett, P. (1999), Inter-linker consistency in the manual construction of hypertext documents, ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 31(4es) [On-line supplement].

  • GlÄnzel, W., Schubert, A. (2001), Double effort = Double impact? A critical view at international co-authorship in chemistry, Scientometrics, 50(2): 199-214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IANA (2003), Generic Top-Level Domains. Retrieved 8 January, 2003 from http://www.iana.org/gtld/gtld.htm

  • Ingwersen, P. (1998), The calculation of Web Impact Factors. Journal of Documentation, 54(2): 236-243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kling, R., McKim, G. (2000), Not just a matter of time: field differences in the shaping of electronic media in supporting scientific communication. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51(14): 1306-1320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lange, L. (1985), Effects of disciplines and countries on citation habits. Scientometrics, 8(3–4): 205-215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, X., Thelwall, M., Musgrove, P., Wilkinson, D. (2003), The relationship between the links/Web Impact Factors of computer science departments in UK and their RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) ranking in 2001. Scientometrics, 57(2): 239-255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • clustering&mapping.pdf

  • Rousseau, R. (1997), Sitations: an exploratory study, Cybermetrics, 1. Available: http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v1i1p1.html

  • Rousseau, R. (1999), Daily time series of common single word searches in AltaVista and NorthernLight, Cybermetrics, 2/3. Available: http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v2i1p2.html

  • Smith, A. G. (1999), A tale of two web spaces: comparing sites using Web Impact Factors, Journal of Documentation, 55(5): 577-592.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, A., Thelwall, M. (2002),Web Impact Factors for Australasian universities, Scientometrics, 54(3): 363-380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, H., Rosenbaum, H. (1999), Can search engines be used for web-link analysis? A critical review. Journal of Documentation, 55(4): 375-384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tang, R., Thelwall, M. (2003), US academic departmental Web-site interlinking: Disciplinary differences. Library & Information Science Research, 25: 437-458.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thelwall, M. (2002a), Conceptualizing documentation on the web: an evaluation of different heuristic-based models for counting links between university web sites, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(12): 995-1005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thelwall, M. (2002b), Evidence for the existence of geographic trends in university web site interlinking, Journal of Documentation, 58(5): 563-574.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thelwall, M. (2004), Methods for reporting on the targets of links from national systems of university Web sites, Information Processing & Management, 40(1): 125-144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thelwall, M., Smith, A. (2002), A study of the interlinking between Asia-Pacific university Web sites, Scientometrics, 55(3): 363-376.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thelwall, M., Tang, R., Price, E. (2003), Linguistic patterns of academic Web use in Western Europe, Scientometrics, 56(3): 417-432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thelwall, M., Tang, R. (2003), Disciplinary and linguistic considerations for academic Web linking: An exploratory hyperlink mediated study with Mainland China and Taiwan, Scientometrics, 58(1): 153-179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, O., Willett, P. (2000), Webometric analysis of departments of Librarianship and information science. Journal of Information Science, 26(6): 421-428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaughan, L., Thelwall, M. (2003), Scholarly use of the web: What are the key inducers of links to journal web sites? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 54(1): 29-38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, D., Harries, G., Thelwall, M., Price, E. (2003), Motivations for academic Web site interlinking: Evidence for the web as a novel source of information on informal scholarly communication, Journal of Information Science, 29(1): 59-66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Library and Information Science, Catholic University of America, 620 Michigan Avenue, NE, Washington, DC, 20064, USA

    Rong Tang

  2. School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Wolverhampton Wolverhampton, (, UK

    Mike Thelwall

Authors
  1. Rong Tang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mike Thelwall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tang, R., Thelwall, M. Patterns of national and international Web inlinks to US academic departments: An analysis of disciplinary variations. Scientometrics 60, 475–485 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SCIE.0000034388.70594.cc

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SCIE.0000034388.70594.cc

Keywords

Search

Navigation