The Web Indicators Portal
The objective of this WISER portal is to provide links to information sources relevant to the construction and use of Web based science, technology and innovation indicators. Web indicators should produce information about crucial aspects of the role of networked, digital information tools and communication media in research and of e-science: international collaboration through the Web; visibility and connectivity of research centres; innovation networks; gender relationships; and the emergence of the European Research Area
The portal aims to bring together different groups working on web indicators, provide an network of information resources including leading edges of informetrics and web research in general, offer a platform for discussion and point to science policy implication of web indicator research.
Application of new information and communication technologies, both in research and in other areas, has often been accompanied by overoptimistic expectations. As a result, policy decision processes with regard to the application of and investment in new information tools and technologies run the risk of being guided more by wishful thinking than sound judgment. This portal aims to contribute to understanding the use of ICT in scientific and scholarly research and the changes this brings to the nature of the research process by laying the foundation for appropriate Web indicators.
Web Indicators
The Internet and the Web play an increasingly important role in research. The emergence of the Internet and the Web have led to changes in the process of scholarly publishing and communication, in the way scientists and scholars search for and find information, in patterns of international collaboration, and in the way high-end computing has enhanced the research process itself (e.g. new, networked, scientific instruments, distributed databases and software tools). The precise nature of the interaction between the new information and communication technologies (ICT) and scientific and scholarly research is often obscure. The shift to digital information tools and means of communication in research creates new challenges. First, more scientific activities become partly invisible to measurements by traditional S&T indicators. Second, the net produces huge amounts of data that, although easy to obtain, will nevertheless not necessarily lead to meaningful indicators.
The development of web indicators is a growing research area. It formally started with the foundation of the e-journal Cybermetrics in 1997. The first Webometrics conference with took place in Roorkee, India at Informetrics and Scientometrics & Fifth COLLNET Meeting in 2004. The European Union has recognised the importance of Webometrics through the funding of two large projects:
Other projects have produced additional Web measurements, including
Please send your suggestion for links to other useful resources to the webmaster
Web Indicators for Innovation Systems
Special Issue of Research Evaluation volume 14, number 2 August 2006
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