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Scholarly use of the Web: What are the key inducers of links to journal Web sites?

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  • Liwen Vaughan
  • Mike Thelwall

Abstract

Web links have been studied by information scientists for at least six years but it is only in the past two that clear evidence has emerged to show that counts of links to scholarly Web spaces (universities and departments) can correlate significantly with research measures, giving some credence to their use for the investigation of scholarly communication. This paper reports on a study to investigate the factors that influence the creation of links to journal Web sites. An empirical approach is used: collecting data and testing for significant patterns. The specific questions addressed are whether site age and site content are inducers of links to a journal's Web site as measured by the ratio of link counts to Journal Impact Factors, two variables previously discovered to be related. A new methodology for data collection is also introduced that uses the Internet Archive to obtain an earliest known creation date for Web sites. The results show that both site age and site content are significant factors for the disciplines studied: library and information science, and law. Comparisons between the two fields also show disciplinary differences in Web site characteristics. Scholars and publishers should be particularly aware that richer content on a journal's Web site tends to generate links and thus the traffic to the site.

Suggested Citation

  • Liwen Vaughan & Mike Thelwall, 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, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 54(1), pages 29-38, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:54:y:2003:i:1:p:29-38
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.10184
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    Cited by:

    1. Enrique Orduña-Malea, 2021. "Dot-science top level domain: Academic websites or dumpsites?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 3565-3591, April.
    2. Rong Tang & Mike Thelwall, 2004. "Patterns of national and international Web inlinks to US academic departments: An analysis of disciplinary variations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(3), pages 475-485, August.
    3. Peter B. Musgrove & Ray Binns & Teresa Page-Kennedy & Mike Thelwall, 2003. "A method for identifying clusters in sets of interlinking Web spaces," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 58(3), pages 657-672, November.
    4. Gaston Heimeriks & Marianne Hörlesberger & Peter Van Den Besselaar, 2003. "Mapping communication and collaboration in heterogeneous research networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 58(2), pages 391-413, October.
    5. Farzaneh Aminpour & Payam Kabiri & Zahra Otroj & Abbas Ali Keshtkar, 2009. "Webometric analysis of Iranian universities of medical sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(1), pages 253-264, July.
    6. David Gunnarsson Lorentzen, 2014. "Webometrics benefitting from web mining? An investigation of methods and applications of two research fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 99(2), pages 409-445, May.
    7. George Masterton & Erik J. Olsson & Staffan Angere, 2016. "Linking as voting: how the Condorcet jury theorem in political science is relevant to webometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 945-966, March.
    8. Erjia Yan & Qinghua Zhu, 2008. "Hyperlink analysis for government websites of Chinese provincial capitals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 76(2), pages 315-326, August.
    9. Enrique Orduna-Malea & Selenay Aytac, 2015. "Revealing the online network between university and industry: the case of Turkey," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1849-1866, December.
    10. Enrique Orduña-Malea & Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo & José-Antonio Ontalba-Ruipérez & Ferrán Catalá-López, 2023. "Evaluating the online impact of reporting guidelines for randomised trial reports and protocols: a cross-sectional web-based data analysis of CONSORT and SPIRIT initiatives," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 407-440, January.
    11. Mike Thelwall, 2012. "Journal impact evaluation: a webometric perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 429-441, August.
    12. Han Park & Mike Thelwall, 2008. "Link analysis: Hyperlink patterns and social structure on politicians’ Web sites in South Korea," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 42(5), pages 687-697, October.
    13. Liwen Vaughan, 2004. "Exploring website features for business information," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 61(3), pages 467-477, November.
    14. Young Mee Chung & So Young Yu & Yong Kwang Kim & Su Yeon Kim, 2009. "Characteristics and link structure of a national scholarly Web space: The case of South Korea," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(3), pages 595-612, September.
    15. Amalia Más-Bleda & Isidro F. Aguillo, 2013. "Can a personal website be useful as an information source to assess individual scientists? The case of European highly cited researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(1), pages 51-67, July.
    16. Liwen Vaughan & Guozhu Wu, 2004. "Links to commercial websites as a source of business information," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(3), pages 487-496, August.
    17. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall, 2008. "Sources of Google Scholar citations outside the Science Citation Index: A comparison between four science disciplines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 273-294, February.
    18. José-Antonio Ontalba-Ruipérez & Enrique Orduna-Malea & Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo, 2016. "Identifying institutional relationships in a geographically distributed public health system using interlinking and co-authorship methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 1167-1191, March.
    19. Xuemei Li & Mike Thelwall & Peter Musgrove & David Wilkinson, 2003. "The relationship between the WIFs or inlinks of Computer Science Departments in UK and their RAE ratings or research productivities in 2001," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(2), pages 239-255, June.
    20. Stanley D. Brunn, 2014. "Cyberspace Knowledge Gaps and Boundaries in Sustainability Science: Topics, Regions, Editorial Teams and Journals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(10), pages 1-28, September.
    21. Bar-Ilan Judit, 2004. "Self-linking and self-linked rates of academic institutions on the Web," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 59(1), pages 29-41, January.
    22. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    23. Mike Thelwall & Rong Tang & Liz Price, 2003. "Linguistic patterns of academic Web use in Western Europe," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 56(3), pages 417-432, March.

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