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On 12/9/2015 11:47 AM, Robert Dickow wrote:<br>
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<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.</span></p>
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<br>
Of course it is suspect. I suspect that it is new.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:013001d132ba$7ee07480$7ca15d80$@com"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">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. </span></p>
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</blockquote>
<br>
Well, there are sure to be some random leaves here and there,
considering that some network connections can be intermittently, or
purposefully, flaky. When some reputed leaders of the world
discover their public face may be improved as a result of better
connections, I suspect the quality of the connections will improve
straightforwardly.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:013001d132ba$7ee07480$7ca15d80$@com"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">The
algorithm itself is actually not new, but using Wikipedia as
the source is almost funny to me.</span></p>
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<br>
Titter and giggle funny, sure, as might accompany gossipy chatter
about a new discussion topic with semi-serious content about who is
seen with whom.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:013001d132ba$7ee07480$7ca15d80$@com"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Keep
in mind how Wikipedia content is contributed.</span></p>
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<br>
Yes, there is a diversity of content-contribution attitudes, ranging
from extremely introverted mathematical imagination applied to
specific, technical articles to, at the other end of the spectrum, a
wiseacre music fan adding his name to a musician's genealogy to
fake-out a guard into allowing the fan a backstage pass and
proximity to the performers. But then Wikipedia editorship, with
many eyes widely dispersed, is likely, over the expanse of topics,
to be no less effective an intellectual security mechanism than a
smaller number of publishers' editors assigned to be academic virtue
valiants protecting the portals of establishment education. Linus
Torvalds, founder of the Linux operating system, said of software
errors that "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow," meaning
that the more people are examining a subject, the less likely the
subject matter contains errors. While this idea may be more
effectively implemented in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematical disciplines as opposed to social science and humanities
topics, it is still true that most Wikipedia topics have their
subject matter guardians, and so most topics are relatively
well-regulated, even in the face of semi-organized attacks against
controversial subject matters.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:013001d132ba$7ee07480$7ca15d80$@com"
type="cite">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Do
we normally rank colleges based on how many times they get
mentioned somewhere?</span></p>
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<br>
Yes. Colleges are routinely ranked based on how many times their
name is mentioned in the winners' columns of sporting statistics.
College professors are ranked according to the number of references
to their work other college professors make in their published
works. It even used to be the case that the party-school status of
various institutions would be reported in such august publications
as Playboy.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:013001d132ba$7ee07480$7ca15d80$@com"
type="cite">
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I
think the interest in the article is certainly there for the
contribution to computer science work, but not for college
rankings.</span></p>
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<br>
There are other facets of the reported relationships that are of
interest. The relative strength and efficiency of northern European
institutions, and the natural languages that are dominant within
their spheres of interaction, are an interesting insight into
inter-institutional interactions, and may indicate to some
priorities in personal language study for professional and
professorial growth. Oh, and by the way, which local educational
institution chose to get rid of its undergraduate major in German,
and has threatened to do the same with French, rather than promote
their growth? An institution that can not bother itself to teach
the major natural languages of the world has little excuse to wonder
why it is nearly invisible from the international stage of academic
interaction. Sigh.<br>
<br>
<br>
Ken<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:013001d132ba$7ee07480$7ca15d80$@com"
type="cite">
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<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>
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<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">
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com">vision2020-bounces@moscow.com</a>
[<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com">mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com</a>] <b>On Behalf Of
</b>Kenneth Marcy<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, December 08, 2015 8:47 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Vision2020] Wikipedia-Mining Algorithm
Reveals World’s Most Influential Universities<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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</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 moz-do-not-send="true" 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>
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