The Webometrics analysis the best universities of the world, which produces a ranking of the top schools based on several factors based on the visibility and online presence, the number of documents and publications and citations online.
Unlike other rankings based solely on research results, Webometrics offers a broad representation of university quality, considering both official publications and patents (such as electronic journals) and informal internal communication to the university and those activities, both teaching and research, which can be relieved by the intensity and type of activity of the university on the web.
According to the ““Espacios Iberoamericanos. Vínculos entre universidades y empresas para el desarrollo tecnológico”, published by CEPAL in collaboration with AECID and SEGIB, the relative weight of Latin America in the total of the best universities in the world is quite relevant and reaches almost 9% due to high value of Spain, where it is located more than 5% of the top universities worldwide. Nevertheless, the Latin American universities occupy top positions in the world ranking such as Mexican and Brazilian.
Universities Ranking Report July 2010
The CSIC Cybermetrics Lab has just released the July 2010 edition of the Ranking Web of World Universities: Webometrics .
This new edition greatly expands coverage to Asia and reached the 20,000 higher education institutions analyzed, of which it provides the classification of the 12,000 first. The catalog has been revised and updating, making it the largest and most complete directory of universities exceeding the one offered by the UNESCO.
Changes of positions are scarce, because the American universities are still leading the results (Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Berkeley), with an excellent performance of Canadian institutions, which exceed in positions of privilege in the UK.
In Europe, in addition to those English (Cambridge and Oxford but also the Scottish Edinburgh) highlights the Swiss (ETH Zurich) and Nordic (Helsinki, Oslo). Appear lagging German, French or Italian, due in large part because research in these countries takes place in independent institutions (Max Planck, CNRS, CNR).
In this new edition, Spain maintained their positions with a university among the 150 first (Complutense of MAdrid).The polytechnics are also placed in good positions, but highlights the good job made by the University of the Basque Country (third in Spain, 202 of the world). The multidomain problem seems Catalan universities, but explains that the University of Barcelona (214) does not reach a higher position.The University of Navarra (466) remains the first private Spanish Ranking. UNED (342) improves positions and remains the leader among distance universities.
In Latin America highlights the UNAM (70 in the world) from Mexico, being especially remarkable the large number of Brazilian universities, led by Sao Paulo, among the best in the region. The Universities of Chile and Buenos Aires are among those in Brazil and Mexico.
Universities in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore lead Asian ranking, after appearing Taiwanese and Korean. Chinese universities had not reached the levels of these countries and the Indian subcontinent are far behind./p>
The research centres ranking complements the former, with a directory of over 7000 entries which provides the classification of early 4000. Institutes of Health in the USA and NASA are at the head of the ranking, followed closely by the CNRS. The Spanish CSIC is ranked 19 in the world, with 7 of their centers from the first thousand.
The Cybermetrics Lab is active in the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences of the CSIC in Madrid. The rankings are published twice a year (January and July) since 2004 and aim to motivate and strengthen the role of the university as a producer and supplier of quality web content freely available.
Source: La Cofa