A Webometric Study of the Websites of the World's Top Hospitals

Document Type : Research َ Article

Authors

1 Lecturer of Library and Information Science, Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC); Shiraz, I.R. Iran

2 M.A. of Library and Information Science, Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC); Shiraz, I.R. Iran

Abstract

Purpose: Due to the importance of hospital websites, the present research carries out a
webometric study on the websites of the world's top hospitals.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The best medical websites around the world were identified
in each country through “webometrics” website. The significant qualities of these
top websites such as the number of pages, extent of interlinking, self-linking, the website
impact factor and also its relation with each country's gross domestic product (GDP) are
analyzed by applying webometrics formulas and referring to AltaVista search engine.
Findings: According to the findings of this research, the USA hospitals websites are in the
first place considering the number of pages, interlinking and self-linking. Considering the
total number of links, Romanian hospitals websites are on top. The top websites of Iran
hospitals from the view point of the number of pages, the number of links, the number of
internal links and the feature of self-linking, respectively rank the 40th, the 38th, the 44th
and 41st in the world. The obtained data displays the weak performance of Iran hospitals
websites. Investigating the relationship between each country's GDP and its medical websites
ranking indicates that this relationship is significant.
Conclusion: This study notices that many countries lack any high-standard medical website
for their hospitals. Some even do not have any medical website. The performance of
some others is very poor too.

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Librarianship and Information Organization Studies
Volume 24, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
94
September 2013
Pages 160-182

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History

  • Receive Date: 09 November 2010
  • Revise Date: 07 April 2015
  • Accept Date: 06 March 2011

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