Can web presence predict academic performance?

Abstract

This paper reports the preliminary results of a project that aims at incorporating the analysis of the web presence (content) of research institutions into the scientometric analysis of these research institutions. The problem is to understand and predict the dynamics of academic activity and resource allocation using web presence. The present paper approaches this problem in two parts. First we develop a crawler and an archive of the web contents obtained from academic institutions, and present an early analysis of the records. Second, we use (currently off-line records to analyze the dynamics of resource allocation. Combination of the two parts is an ambition of ongoing work.The motivation in this study is twofold. First, we strongly believe that independent archiving, indexing and searching of (past) web content is an important task, even with regards to academic web presence. We are particularly interested in studying the dynamics of the "online scientific discourse", based on the assumption that the changing traces of web presence is an important factor that documents the intensity of activity. Second, we maintain that the trend-analysis of scientific activity represents a hitherto unused potential. We illustrate this by a pilot where, using 'offline' longitudinal datasets, we study whether past (i.e. cumulative) success can predict current (and future) activity in academia. Or, in short: do institutions invest and publish in areas where they have been successful? Answer to this question is, we believe, important to understanding and predicting research policies and their changes.