Visibility and impact of Iranian research institutions on the web

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the web site performances of 18 Iranian Research Institutions based on the following factors: web impact factor (WIF), connectivity, visibility and traffic rank.

Design/methodology/approach

In this research, AltaVista search engine was used to calculate the number of total links and WIF; and data for traffic rank, number of pages viewed and percentage of foreign and Iranian visitors were extracted from the Alexa data bank. Also correspondence analysis is employed to analyze the data using John's Macintosh Project software.

Findings

The results revealed that SANJESH Organization and Iranian Scientific Information and Documentation Center web sites have performed fairly well in most factors. These two web sites have the best ranking in traffic and attracted a large number of total links compared with the other web sites. The results of the correspondence analysis of these 18 web sites can be divided into three groups consisting of one, five and 12 web sites, respectively.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the evaluation and ranking of Iranian research institutions' web sites were not discussed in any other studies. With web technologies playing such an important role in the areas of science and research today, the functions and performances of research and academic institutions' web sites on the world wide web should be assessed to identify their weaknesses.

Citation

Erfanmanesh, M. and Didegah, F. (2011), "Visibility and impact of Iranian research institutions on the web", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 4-9. https://doi.org/10.1108/07419051111130367