Popularity measurements of Cuban higher education: a webmetric analysis

Abstract

We discuss the popularity of Cuba´s MES (Ministry of Higher Education) centres, as well as their interconnectedness and visibility on the world wide web. The role of links in the positioning and visibility of these sites was studied because web browsers use link analysis (or hypertext analysis) to infer not only the content but the quality or the possible "authority" status of a web site. A webmetric study of the 17 centres with web sites was conducted. The relationship between the number of links and page traffic of the MES centres was determined by analysis of the browsers Google, Alltheweb, and Altavista, and also from the Internet Archive and Traffic Rank (Alexa ranking). Four results were obtained: i) the MES centres had better visibility in the browser Altavista, with a Standard Error (SE) ±0,00210; of these, a significantly better value was observed for the 13th centre (superscript a); ii) as page storage in the Internet archive increased, more links or cites were received from the browsers; iii) the links and ranking in Alltheweb showed significantly better performance (SE ± 0,23) and a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0,44%; iv) significant differences exist among MES centre sites in the Internet archive, with respect to links and activity reported in the Traffic Rank.