Webometrics Ranking of World Universities is the largest global university evaluation system, covering more than 20,000 universities and deploying 16,000 of them. It is issued in Spain by the High Council for Scientific Research. The objective of the evaluation is to improve the presence of higher education and scientific research institutions on the Internet and to encourage the publication of scientific articles in an open access manner. It is a semi-annual evaluation issued in January and July of each year, and is based on measuring the performance of universities through their websites within the following criteria (size – reference to research – general impact(.