A Survey about the Application of Webometrics in Scholarly Communications

Nowadays the Web has turned to a significant means for communication and both formal and informal collaboration among researchers, it is also accessible to others. The number of sources available on the Web in various fields is multiplying annually. This matter naturally leads researchers to pay greater attention to Web research in which the extent of the real use of Web pages is a principal factor. Following widespread Web research conducted since the mid-1990s, many new and varied terms related to the present aspects of the Web have been created and introduced by a variety of people. This research aims to study the role of Webometrics in studying various aspects of the Web and to discuss the different practical applications of Webometrics. Methodology/Approach: While reviewing different resources, the present research has studied 11 applications of Webometrics and presented the results of each application separately. Investigations indicate that Webometrics experts are able to investigate and study the complex environment of the Web. Webometrics can aid the assessment of scholarly communications and the activities of researchers and others, by applying Webometrics methods and formulae and also by the help of special instructions. Webometrics shares similarities with Bibliometrics and Scientometrics but Webometrics studies are not a mere measurement of these studies and differ markedly from them. Factors like the dynamic nature of the Web and the complexities of search engines - which are the principal data collection tools for Webometrics studies - and also the Invisible Web, the instability of web sources, etc. illustrate the wide differences between Webometrics and Bibliometric and Scientometric studies. Webometrics studies face more difficulties in comparison with Bibliometric and Scientometric studies.