<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:black;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:black;}
span.EmailStyle19
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-size:10.0pt;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Well, this was interesting, but the ranking result is suspect. I like the result because my alma mater is pretty high up (10<sup>th)</sup>, but apart from that, one should be quite wary of this list as a raking that is at all accurate. The algorithm itself is actually not new, but using Wikipedia as the source is almost funny to me. Keep in mind how Wikipedia content is contributed. Do we normally rank colleges based on how many times they get mentioned somewhere? I think the interest in the article is certainly there for the contribution to computer science work, but not for college rankings.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Bob Dickow, troublemaker<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'> vision2020-bounces@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Kenneth Marcy<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, December 08, 2015 8:47 PM<br><b>To:</b> vision2020@moscow.com<br><b>Subject:</b> [Vision2020] Wikipedia-Mining Algorithm Reveals World’s Most Influential Universities<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Wikipedia-Mining Algorithm Reveals World’s Most Influential Universities <br></span><br><b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/na38zlz">http://tinyurl.com/na38zlz</a> <br></b><br><b>An algorithm’s list of the most influential universities contains some surprising entries.<br></b><br>Where are the world’s most influential universities? That’s a question that increasingly dominates the way the public, governments, and funding agencies think about research and higher education. <o:p></o:p></p><p>The problem, of course, is that it’s hard to produce an objective ranking of almost anything, let alone universities. Cultural, historical, and geographical factors can all influence these rankings in ways that are hard to quantify.<o:p></o:p></p><p>So an independent way of producing a ranking that avoids these controversies would be widely welcomed.<o:p></o:p></p><p>Today, we get such a ranking thanks to the work of Jose Lages at the University of Franche-Comte in France and a few pals. They’ve used the way universities are mentioned on Wikipedia to produce a world ranking. Their results provide a new way to think about rankings that may help to avoid some of the biases that can occur in other ranking systems.<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><snip><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>