I, and many others, found PostRank to be a very helpful way to evaluate, and learn about, blogs in many areas, including education. However, it joined the ranks of many worthy online tools that were bought by Google and then shut down.

Now, USC Rossier Online, associated with the University of Southern California, has unveiled a rating system for education blogs that they call The Teach 100.

They change the rankings daily, and use this formula to rank engagement:

There are four major components of the Teach100 score, which are aggregated when calculating a blog’s Teach100 ranking. These four components are:

Social (40%) – Engagement as determined through its combined Facebook shares, Tweets and StumbleUpon visits to the blog and its most recent posts. Ranking weighs shares pointing back to the blogs 10 most recent posts as well as for its main domain.

Activity (20%) – The frequency of a blog’s updates. The more frequently a blog is updated, the higher its activity score

Authority (20%) – The overall authority and influence relative to the rest of the web as determined by the number of sites linking to the blog. This methodology is one of the foundations of the Google Search Algorithm and is a commonly used measure of a website’s authority.

Teach Score (20%) – This is the single subjective factor in the evaluation of the Teach100. The Teach Score considers how media is used throughout a blog, how topics in education are discussed, the timeliness of blog content, the capacity to inform, and the overall presentation of the blog.

They presently rank Inside Higher Ed at number one; The New York Times Learning Network at number two, and Edutopia at number three.

This blog is ranked number twelve.

I’m always wary of “engagement” rankings and formulas, but lists like these are always useful for discovering new blogs and resources.