Mystery solved.

The top three hundred sounds good to me, but not to the VC.

I got this unbidden email a few days ago. At first I thought it had something to with this blog, though I found that unlikely.


From: ipsaportal@unina.it [ipsaportal@unina.it] Sent: Wed 4/4/2007 10:46 AM To: ipsaportal@unina.it
Cc: Subject: Your website included in IPSAPortal
Dear Madam/Sir
We are pleased to inform you that your website has been selected for inclusion
in the IPSAPortal, featuring the best 300 websites for online research in
Political Science.
IPSAPortal is an official publication of the International Political Science
Association launched at the 20th IPSA World Congress, held in Fukuoka, Japan,
in July 2006.
An International Editorial Board is in charge of the selection and evaluation
process.
We are attaching our blue ribbon banner. You can use it to link your website to
the IPSAPortal home page and/or to your website’s description. The enclosed
flyer offers additional information on our project.
We try our best to keep our description and evaluation constantly updated. We
shall appreciate your cooperation in providing us with any feedback on your
and/or other websites.
Best regards,
Mauro Calise
Editor
http://www.ipsaportal.net/
This logo was attached so that I could use it as a link to promote IPSA.
IPSA_1.jpg
So I followed the links, which yielded a lot of error messages on the day I tried. But now five days later and the links work. Below is the trail.
http://ipsaportal.unina.it/home.html
IPSA_2.jpg
Being in the top three hundred certainly sounds good. Enter I did.
IPSA_3.jpg
But now where to look? I tried Thematic sites as the blog is politicaltheoryandpractice. No luck there. As below.
IPSA_4.jpg
Then I tried departments, and solved the mystery. Below, if you squint on the left at the top is “The School of Economics a..” Place the cursor over it and the label appears, as does a hundred word description from the old SEPS web site, but I cannot snag that as the text disappears with the cursor.
IPSA_5.jpg
Mystery solved.
The top three hundred must refer to this SEPS web site, which was harvested in September 2006 just as SEPS was fading away. I got the email because someone looked up head of department to send the email.
I must remember to change this when we become a department in Arts, although three hundred will not impress the Vice Chancellor who says were are within the top forty in the world. Move over Princeton and Cambridge. I guess they, too, have asbestos in laboratory benches, no place to park, graduate students by alphabet, have little or no contact with alumni, and the like.