Peer-To-Peer:

eLab Ranked First in E-Commerce Research Centers

eLab, the nation's first academic research center dedicated to the study of e-business, has been named the No. 1 e-commerce research center in the world by Google, the largest search engine on the World Wide Web.

eLab, already called "one of the premiere research centers in the world for the study of electronic commerce" by The New York Times, is housed at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.

The virtual lab, the brainchild of Owen professors Donna Hoffman and Tom Novak, was ranked ahead of projects at the University of Texas at Austin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie-Mellon University, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, the University of California-Berkeley and others.

Google ranked the Internet site based on the quantity of links to its pages and the quality of those links.

"We're very excited to be listed as the No. 1 e-commerce research center according to Google. This prestigious ranking reflects the value people place on the research on the eLab Web site," Novak said. Hoffman added, "Thanks to Vanderbilt's investment in eLab, we're in a strong position to maintain and strengthen this lead as the 'go to' site on the Internet for reliable and useful information about digital commerce."

As stated on its Web site, "In 2001, eLab became the first research center to build an entire infrastructure to study actual online consumer behavior. eLab consists of virtual experiments and surveys, live destination Web sites and an online consumer panel that provides an extensive subject pool for Web-based surveys and experiments fielded in the virtual lab."

Since its inception, Hoffman said that eLab has helped dozens of companies integrate the Internet into their business strategies.