1. Web links as an indicator of research output:a comparison of NZ Tertiary Institution links with the PBRF assessment Alastair G. Smith School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington Mike Thelwall School of Computing & Information Technology, University of Wolverhampton

2. Overview Compared: • Web links between NZ Universities • 2003 Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) research assessment exercise

3. The Universities • University of Auckland • University of Canterbury • Victoria University of Wellington • University of Otago • Waikato University • Lincoln University • Massey University • Auckland University of Technology

4. PBRF • Purpose: to allocate government research funding • Rated individual researcher portfolios: • Research outputs • Indications of peer esteem • Contributions to the research environment • Overall measures: • Overall research output (sum of ratings) • Quality score (portfolio ratings/FTE)

5. Correlations: web-based measures / PBRF Quality Score

6. Domain inlinks/FTE & PBRF Quality Scores

7. Links between institutions Auckland Canterbury Waikato Massey Otago VUW

8. Conclusions • Link counts broadly correlate with PBRF • Consistent with UK findings • Inlinks/staff member a useful measure • Pattern of linking not uniform • Future research: • rankings for subject areas • Include links from outside NZ • Include other tertiary institutions