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I. Introduction
A. HBCUs in a Broader
Context
When the DLL began producing its reports
and notes five years ago, its fundamental assumption was that
African American institutions of higher learning were sufficiently
integrated within the broader U.S. society so that trends
in the larger society would also be found in data about HBCUs.
Over time, however, the
DLL discovered that such insights ran both ways. Sometimes
it found patterns within HBCU data before similar patterns were reported
in the larger society; at other times it found that the patterns in
the HBCU data were clearer than patterns in comparable data about
majority institutions of higher learning or about other information-intensive
sectors of the broader society.
The present note is a case in
point. The HBCU data illuminates the data about the other sectors.
Of course, such insights must be regarded
as merely plausible hypotheses rather than demonstrable facts because
the sample of organizations examined within the broader sectors were
not randomly selected. In other words, the findings reported in
this note are descriptive, but its conclusions are
exploratory.
B. The Significance of PageRanks
Google measures the importance of a Web
page by its "PageRank", a unique index developed by Google's
founders (Larry
Page and Sergey
Brin) while they were Ph.D. candidates at Stanford University. The
PageRanks that Google assigns to HBCU Home Pages provide a direct
test of the DLL's assumption that HBCUs are integrated within the
broader U.S. society, specifically, within the cyberspace manifestations
of U.S. society. Given
Google's current dominance of the online search market -- 63%
of the U.S. market in November 2008 -- its PageRanks
can serve as a plausible measure of the integration of HBCU Websites
within U.S. cyberspace in the same way that segregation
indices measure the integration (or separation) of African American
households within the nation's residential neighborhoods.
But why should anyone
care about PageRanks? They should care because as Herbert
Simon predicted fifty years ago, we live in an age wherein
information is no longer a scarce resource; the increasingly scarce
resource of our time is attention. Fortunately, the same Internet
that brought far more information to our fingertips than we can possibly
grasp has also brought efficient search tools -- e.g., Google, Yahoo!,
MSN, cuil, etc -- to help us quickly find our quested needles in
the rising haystacks. These automated search services tell us what
we should look at and, more importantly, what we can safely ignore. Given
Google's preeminent position as the search tool of choice for most Americans,
for the foreseeable future most U.S. Web users will be aware of the
past achievements or current resources of an HBCU according to the level
of importance, i.e., the PageRank, that Google assigns to that HBCU's
Web pages.
This note examines the PageRanks
assigned to the Home Pages of each of the 102 officially designated Historically
Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in January 2009
and compares them to the PageRanks of the Home Pages of some other
well-known majority institutions of higher learning. A
previous edition of this note examined the PageRanks assigned in October
2006. To obtain a broader perspective, the PageRanks of
prominent organizations in three other information-intensive sectors
are also considered.
- PageRanks strongly influence the position
of a page in Google's search results. Links
to Web pages having lower PageRanks will tend to appear further
down in search result pages and/or on later results pages than
links to Web pages having higher PageRanks.
- For example, suppose that one HBCU has a Home Page
whose PageRank = 8 and another HBCU has a Home Page whose PageRank
= 6. When prospective students or funding agencies search for
HBCUs having specified features, they will find links to the first
HBCU on earlier pages of their search results. Links to
the other HBCU would probably appear on later pages.
- People tend to use the results they find on the
initial pages returned by a search and to ignore results on later
pages. Therefore Home Pages having higher PageRanks will tend
to have more visitors than Home Pages having lower PageRanks.
C. Measuring PageRanks
Google's toolbar can configured on a user's
browser to display the PageRank of any Web page.
Readers who are not familiar with Google's PageRanks are
advised to glance at Appendix
C of this note before moving on to the next section.
But for readers who would rather skip the appendix, it is sufficient
for them to understand that PageRanks are a measure of the "popularity"
of a Website among all of the other Websites on the Web. A
popular Website that receives many links from other Websites
will be assigned a higher PageRank than an "unpopular" Website
that receives few links from other Websites.
PageRanks also take the
popularity
of the voting Websites into account. Receiving a few links from popular
Websites may be worth more than receiving many links from unpopular
Websites. Google advises Webmasters who wish to increase the
PageRanks of their own Websites to do so by posting valuable content
on their Websites in accessible formats in order to attract links from
other Websites having higher PageRanks.
Last updated:
Sunday 04-Jan-2009 11:47 PM
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