New Ranking Shows a Worrying Divergence

Harvard is first place in the world rankings, as it was last year, followed by MIT, Stanford, Cornell and the University of Michigan in the latest edition of the Webometrics rankings, published by the Cybermetrics Lab at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Spain. There are some noticeable changes at the top. The University of Pennsylvania has fallen from fifth place in the world last year to tenth while UCLA has dropped from sixth to fourteenth.
The Webometrics rankings are highly distinctive since they are largely based on web data which, the producers argue, is more comprehensive and objective. More...