Theory and Practice of the Webometrics Discipline

Gafar A .F. Ibrahim
Deanship of Libraries - University of Nyala

Introduction:

Studies in Library and Information Science (LIS) used to focus on statictangible

information resources for a long time since the invention of writing in the third millennium BC or possibly earlier by the Sumerians. However, the situation has changed dramatically into study of dynamic intangible resources by the mid 1990s when efforts have been made to investigate the nature and metrics of the web through applying techniques and methodologies of bibliometrics and informetrics in order to deal with the continuous flow of web-based information resources. Statement of the problem:

Since its invention in the last decade of the twentieth century, the web remained untamed and an immeasurable land of no man. Its uncontrolled

nature creates numerous problems in the interpretation of results, for instance, from the automatic creation or replication of links. The loose connection between toplevel domain specifications (e.g., .com, .edu, and .org) and their actual content is also a frustrating hurdle. For instance, many “.com” sites contain noncommercial content, although “.com” is the main commercial top-level domain.

The importance:

Webometrics has been integrated in the curriculum of several schools of LIS worldwide except in the Middle East and in the Sudan in particular. Its applications in measuring online intellectual production in science, research and development and patents for industrial assessment, among others, is crucial in reinforcing policies and strategies of industrial and higher education institutions.

The objectives:

Webometrics, the quantitative study of web-related phenomena, emerged from the realisation that methods originally designed for bibliometric analysis of scientific journal article citation patterns could be applied to the web, with commercial search engines providing the raw data. It comprises research from fields other than information science such as communication studies, statistical physics, and computer science. This study aims to introduce the field of

webometrics as a contribution to library and information science literature. Its major goal is to investigate components, theories and applications of such field through the literature review methodology.

However, this paper investigates the issue of theory and practice of the webometrics discipline in two sections. The first section provides the theoretical framework which tries to revisit old philosophies and theories relevant to the realm of virtual knowledge. Such revisiting helps selling old brandy in a new bottle, revive the solid thoughts for building better grounds in order to enable webometrics to be understood, assimilated and further developed. The second section is concerned with the ways in which this field is empirically oriented.

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