Link-Based Webometric Indexes And Scientific Evaluation

The use of links in university research evaluation is an emerging research field, and there are still few related studies in China. On the basis of current domestic and oversea research, the paper studies the correlation between link-based webometric indexes and research scores of Chinese research universities, discusses the validity and reliability of these indexes in evaluating research ability of universities in the real world; studies the creation motivations of external links affecting the evaluation ability of links to some extent, including the potential and direct motivations.The research found that the validity of new indexes like external links in particular domains may be better than that of total external link. Moreover, the correlations between the external links from .edu and .ac.cn domain and research scores of universities are the best, therefore, these two indexes may be the best indexes in evaluating research ability of Chinese universities. The study on creation motivations of external links showed that web traffic rankings may be the potential motivation for linking; the most common direct motivation is due to recommendation and navigation, accounting for 77% of total result; and related links with individual or organization account for 11%; if both research and teaching motivations are deemed as for the purpose of academic research, there will be 9% motivations for the purpose of academic research.