World influence and interactions of universities from Wikipedia networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Wikipedia Ranking of World Universities (WRWU), using network analysis of Wikipedia editions to assess university influence globally and historically, revealing interactions and cultural perspectives.

Contribution

It presents a novel ranking method based on Wikipedia networks and the reduced Google matrix, capturing long-term interactions and cultural influences of universities.

Findings

60% overlap with Shanghai ranking for top 100 universities

The reduced Google matrix reveals university interactions over ten centuries

Different Wikipedia editions show varying views on university influence

Abstract

We present Wikipedia Ranking of World Universities (WRWU) based on analysis of networks of 24 Wikipedia editions collected in May 2017. With PageRank and CheiRank algorithms we determine ranking of universities averaged over cultural views of these editions. The comparison with the Shanghai ranking gives overlap of 60% for top 100 universities showing that WRWU gives more significance to their historical development. We show that the new reduced Google matrix algorithm allows to determine interactions between leading universities on a scale of ten centuries. This approach also determines the influence of specific universities on world countries. We also compare different cultural views of Wikipedia editions on significance and influence of universities.