Webometrics analyzes about 15,000 universities around the world and ranks 5,000 on their ‘web performance’ based on the institutions’ proclivity for a significant web presence. The criteria was determined by a weighted combination of visibility (external inlinks), size (web pages), rich files, and Google Scholar availability [via].
Their aim is to promote web publication and not rank institutions thus supporting open access initiatives and electronic access to scientific publications for research. Such a ‘web presence’ might have a correlation with academic quality and prestige as is evident through the ranking of top 4000 institutions (I’m glad to see Texas A&M ranked 16).
On a related note, there is a call for JSTOR to release academic research material into public domain as the content was created by academics funded by not-for-profit institutions. JSTOR in fact also is a self-sustaining not-for-profit institution.
One of the impressive options in Questia is the availability of online tools that enable users to create footnotes, bibliographical references, and hyperlinking across titles. I cannot overemphasize the importance of such tools that not only recreate the way you would use physical resources but also enhance your experience in using online tools in order to help you maintain a list of resources you accessed. One more additional feature that impressed me was the