V. ReferenceRanks

A. The Core and PageRanks

When the reader clicks the following button, Table CC will appear in a pop-up window.

• The first column (from the left) contains the Website's ReferenceRank.
  
• The second column contains the PageRank assigned by Google.
  
• The third column contains the official name of each HBCU or service organization in the Core of the HBCU network.
  
• The rows are ordered by ReferenceRanks, then by PageRanks, and then alphabetically.
  

B. References to Prominent Academic Websites Outside of the HBCU Community

Having determined that the Core Websites are well-connected to each other and to other Websites within the HBCU network, we directed our attention to their connections to the outside world, in particular, to well-known academic Websites to which Google had assigned PageRanks = 8, 9, and 10. To pursue this question we constructed a third customized search engine that would only search the 23 Websites in the Core.

We selected our targets from the list of Websites of prominent majority institutions compiled for the DLL's HBCU PageRanks Note #3. We made a special effort to select sites that were within the Mid-Atlantic and Southern regions wherein most HBCUs are located, or at least on the East Coast. When the reader clicks the following button, Table DD will appear in a pop-up window.

• The first column (from the left) contains the Website's PageRank.
  
• The second column contains Website's official name.
• The third column contains the search string used instead of the name.
• The fourth column contains the number of references each Website received from the Core on 11/18/06.

C. Comments

• As noted in the Introduction to this paper, Google assigned PageRank = 8 to five HBCUs. As can be seen from Table CC, four of these Websites -- Hampton, Howard, FAMU, and Jackson State -- are in the Core. Indeed, three of them -- Hampton, Howard, and Jackson State -- were in the "Top 10".
  
  
• Table CC also shows that the Core sites belong to HBCUs that are distributed across the states that have the largest number of HBCUs.
  
  
• Two members of the Core are service organizations, 8 are private HBCUs, and 13 are public HBCUs.
  
  
• Of the 21 HBCUs in the Core, only 3 are four year colleges; the other 18 are universities with extensive graduate level programs, including the four Google "celebrities".
  
  
• The average number of references to the selected prominent outside Websites = 179.9, as shown in the lower right hand corner of Table DD. This figure is somewhat lower than the 226 references that the "Top 10" directed to their "Closest Associates" in the Core, but is of comparable magnitude.