Annals of Library and Information Studies JEYSHANKAR & RAMESH BABU: WEBSITES OF UNIVERSITIES IN 69 Vol. 56, June 2009, pp.69-79

Websites of universities in Tamil Nadu: a webometric study

R. Jeyshankar and B. Ramesh Babu Lecturer, Department of Library and Information Science, , Karaikkudi, Tamil Nadu, E-mail: [email protected] Professor, Department of Information Science, , Chennai 600 005, E-mail:[email protected]

Examines and explores through a webometric study the websites of 45 universities in Tamil Nadu comprising of 27 state and 18 private universities. Identifies the domain systems of the websites; analyses the number of web pages and link pages, and calculates the simple Web Impact Factor (WIF), self link Web Impact Factor and external Web Impact Factor of the University websites in Tamil Nadu and ranks the websites as per the WIF. Reflects that some universities in Tamil Nadu have higher number of web pages but correspondingly their link pages are very small in number and websites fall behind in their simple, self link and external link web impact factor.

Introduction users in different contexts. For example, situation analysis, Metrics studies in library and information science such coined by Rousseau2, considers hyperlinks to and from as librametrics, bibliometrics, scientometrics, other websites as “bibliographical citations” in traditional informetrics are well known and a number of studies analysis. Quantitative studies of the web have been have been carried out in these areas. The metric studies named webometrics by Almind and Ingwersen3. are used to measures scholarly communication; identify Rodríguez and Gairín4 and Larson5 are also pioneers with research trends and growth of knowledge; identify users their early exploratory link structure analysis with the first of different subjects; estimate comprehensiveness of pure informetric analysis of the web. Bojorneborne6 and secondary periodicals; forecast past, present and future Ingwersen defined webometrics as: “the study of the publishing trends; adopt an accurate weeding and quantitative aspects of the construction and use of stacking policy; develop norms and standardization; information resources, structures and technologies on the identify authorship and its trends in documents on various web drawing on bibliometric and informetric approaches”. subjects; predict productivity of publishers, individual This definition covers the construction side and usage authors, organizations, country or that of an entire side of the web which embraces the four main areas of discipline. The recent years have witnessed the Webometrics study. These are : emergence of webometrics or cybermetrics. Webometric covers research of all network based • Web page content analysis communication using informetric or other quantitative • Web link structure analysis (e.g. Hyperlink, Self measure. Webometrics, in future, may become one of link and External link) the most interesting research area for the vast collection • Web usage analysis (e.g. exploiting log files for of electronic information available on the publicly users searching and browsing behavior), and indexable web. Paisley1 rightly identified this area as the future domain of bibliometric research. • Web technology analysis (including search engine performance) Library and information science is concerned with how different information resources and information Being a document network with documents in the shape structures (interrelated of information resources) are of web pages interconnected by links into complex generated, organized, distributed and utilized by different hypertext structures, the World Wide Web is an obvious 70 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., JUNE 2009 research area in LIS. The fundamental idea of the a UK university and the number of incoming links from WWW is the presentation of hypertext documents, like its peers’ web sites. icons, or highlighted phrases. Since the mid 1990’s, increasing efforts have been made to investigate the Boudouries, Sigrist and Alevizos10 conducted a study of nature and properties of World Wide Web by applying the websites of the institutions participating in or related modern informetric methodologies to the contents, link to the SOEIS (Self–Organisation of the European structures and search engines. The World Wide Web Information Society) project using Alta Vista as data has now become one of the main sources of information collection instrument. The researchers performed a on academic and research activities. It is an excellent multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis of co-links platform to test new methods of evaluating webometric among 10 such sites, displaying the underlying structure activities. among them. Boudouries11 and his colleagues also attempted to show the “triple-helix-ness” (i.e., the inter- Of the webometric studies conducted so far, some studies relationship and connectivity among universities, have concentrated on certain parameters of websites governments and industries) in both Europe and the such as incoming links (in-links), outgoing links (out-links), United states by analyzing link types and in-links of 112 and co-links. Cui7 analyzed out-links of 19 top medical websites. They found that, among other things, the US schools websites by using a freeware programme named government is by far the most triple –helixed. Europe Check Web (http://www.alterego.fr/dev/chkweb.html). universities have excellent triple – helix-ness as well. The out-links were then ranked by situation frequency 12 and Top Level Domain (TLD (e.g., GOV and EDU for Ingwersen proposed a set of new measurements for United States; AU and CN for other countries). A group measuring the online impact of areas of the web, including of 78 highly cited websites in health science was finally university web sites. The best of these, the (external) identified. Web Impact Factor (WIF or (Web-IF), was designed to measure the average online impact of a set of WebPages Collecting out – link data with different shareware tools by counting the in-linking pages outside the set in question, and in-links from Alta Vista, Vreeland8 ranked 156 and then dividing by the number of pages inside the set. 13 websites of ABA (American Bar Association) accredited Thelwall later modified WIF for universities by using law school libraries by visibility (i.e., number of in-links) another measure of the size of a university than a count and luminosity (i.e., number of out–links). No clear of pages in its domain: its full–time academic members correlation was found between visibility and luminosity. of staff. This was justified by reasons that eventually lead to the creation of Alternative Document Models Thelwall9 has studied the previous web link studies and (ADMs) discussed earlier, for example, that universities have used the web pages as the primary indivisible source may post huge numbers of externally useless pages on document for counting purposes. Three alternative their site, such as server log statistics, which would heuristics are defined for the educational arena based otherwise reduce their average impact. upon the directory, the domain and the whole university site. These are then compared by implementing them on Scope of the present study a set of 108 UK university institutional websites under the assumption that a more effective heuristic will tend World Wide Web (WWW) is a global network of internet to produce results that correlate more highly with servers providing access to documents that allows institutional research productivity. It was discovered that content to be interlinked, locally and remotely. It is a vast the domain and directory models were able to network of linked hypertext files, stored on computers successfully reduce the impact of anomalous linking throughout the world that can provide a computer user behaviour between pairs of web sites, with the latter with information on a huge variety of subjects. World being the method of choice. Reasons are then given as Wide Web has a greater impact on communications and to why a document model on its own cannot eliminate society than any other technology. all anomalies in web linking behaviour. Finally, the results from all models give a clear confirmation of the very It is now widely used as one of the primary means of strong association between the research productivity of disseminating research findings and information through JEYSHANKAR & RAMESH BABU: WEBSITES OF UNIVERSITIES IN TAMIL NADU 71 digital libraries and electronic documents such as e- includes an intended starting file called a “home page”. journals, e-print archives and online conference From the home page, one can get to all the other pages proceedings. The internet and more specifically the web on the website. Each site is owned and managed by an has quickly become a major information medium and individual, company or organization. The complete set influences several aspects of our lives. Srivastava and of documents residing on all internet servers use the Kumar14 point out that webometrics is a systematic HTTP protocol is accessible to users via a simple point- evaluation and analysis of all aspects of the web and-click system. World Wide Web is a part of the phenomena and can help us understand how this medium internet that contains linked text, image, sound, and video works. documents. The present paper examines and explores through webometric study, websites of universities in Tamil Nadu. Methodology of study There are 46 universities in Tamil Nadu. Among them This study used Alta Vista (www.altavista.com) search Tamil Nadu Educational University has no website, so engine for collecting raw data. Alta Vista’s advanced only the web sites of 45 universities have only been used web queries was used to find the approximate number considered for the study. The study aimed to establish a of pages in each website that link to one another. The kind of academic ranking of websites of universities in Alta Vista query is based upon the lexicon of the domain Tamil Nadu by evaluating their WIF. The study on the names of web page URLs. The main search was ranking will help the readers to compare and identify conducted using the keyword like all the university universities websites in Tamil Nadu by their WIF. website address.

Objectives of the study When undertaking WIF study, it is necessary to select a suitable search engine that will count the number of pages The primary objective of this study is to formulate a in the web site and the number of pages linking to the methodology for the calculation of web impact factor at web site. Smith15 stated that the website should have a three hierarchical levels – TLD - Top Level Domain, large database, covering as much of the web as possible. SLD - Sub Level Domain and WSLD. Other objectives The data collection method extensively makes use of include: four special key words like domain, link domain, link domain AND domain, and link domain AND NOT domain • To identify and analyze websites of universities from AltaVista Search engines as explained and surveyed in Tamil Nadu, by Thelwall16, Notess17 and Chu18. A series of online snapshot searches over a month (27/10/2008 – 26/11/ • To identify the domain systems of all the 2008) have been performed on the selected search engine universities’ websites in Tamil Nadu as per the by keeping the various search conditions constant. The web pages, four search statement methods used to collect data for • To calculate the number of web pages, number each university websites are as follows: of link pages, number of self link pages and • domain:tnuniv.ac.in: It will report number of web external link pages of the universities’ websites pages at the website under www.tnuniv.ac.in. in Tamil Nadu and rank them, and • • To calculate the simple Web Impact Factor linkdomain:tnuniv.ac.in: It will report total number (WIF), self link Web Impact Factor and external of web pages linking to the website under Web Impact factor of the universities’ websites www.tnuniv.ac.in. in Tamil Nadu and rank them as per the WIF. • linkdomain:tnuniv.ac.in AND domain:tnuniv.ac.in: It provides a complete report of number of web Concept of websites pages under www.tnuniv.ac.in which provides hyperlinks to this website www.tnuniv.ac.in; it A website is a collection of interlinked web pages on a is called self–links pages (links from the same related topic, usually under a single domain name, which website). 72 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., JUNE 2009

• linkdomain:tnuniv.ac.in AND NOT Table 1 –– Classification of universities by the domain domain:tnuniv.ac.in: It provides the report number of pages not under www.tnuniv.ac.in. Sl. No Domain Government Private Total But this websites provide hyperlinks to www.tnuniv.ac.in. It is called external - link 1 .ac.in 10 9 19 pages. 4 .org 8 2 10 2 .edu 3 4 7 6 .com 2 3 5 3 .edu.in 2 Nil 2 Web Impact Factor 5 .net 2 Nil 2 WIFs are part of the methodology of webometrics. A Total 27 18 45 Web Impact Factor (WIF) is a relatively new measure of the extent to which a site is linked to by other sites, Web Impact Factors for all the three levels can be and is analogous to a citation count in the print formulated in the following way. environment. Broadly, it is a measure of the extent to which it is linked to and recognized by other sites. The Number of web pages linking to 1. Web Impact for Top – the Top Level Domain WIF is a form of measurement used to determine the Level Domain (TLD) = ————————————— relative standing of web sites in particular fields, or a Number of web pages in the country; for instance, academic web sites in a country. Top LevelDomain The higher the impact factor, the higher the perceived Number of web pages linking reputation of the web site. 2. Web Impact for Sub - to the Sub Level Domain Level Domain (SLD) = ————————————— Number of web pages in the The idea of applying bibliometric techniques to the web Sub Level Domain was proposed by Noruzi19. According to the author, WIF Number of web pages linking may be defined as the ratio of links made to a website, to the Website to the number of pages at the website. 3. Web Impact Factor = ——————————————— (WSLD) Number of web pages in the website The WIF provides quantitative tools for ranking, evaluating, categorizing, and comparing web sites, top- level domains and sub-domains. There are three types Analysis and discussion of links - Classification of universities by the domain Table 1 shows the classification of universities by the • The simple WIF, the ratio of all links to the domain name. Nineteen universities have the domain number of pages. name .ac.in. Among them there are 10 government and 9 private universities. Ten universities have the domain • The internal WIF, the ratio of internal links within name .org. among them there are 8 government and 2 the site to number of pages. private universities. Seven universities have the domain • The external WIF, the ratio of links made from name .edu. Among them there are 3 government and 4 external sites to the target site, to the number of private universities. 2 government and 3 private pages at the site. universities have domain name .com. Two government universities have the domain edu.in and rest of the 2 government universities have the .org domain. Thelwall20 has attempted to correlate WIFs with external measures of research output of British universities and found that a WIF concentrated on research based pages Web Impact Factor (WIF) of Tamil Nadu Government gave the highest correlation with external measures. Universities’ websites Thelwall21 has used crawler to find WIFs for UK The simple WIF as shown in Table 2 illustrates the rank University website interlinking. distribution of the government universities website of Tamil Nadu according to their simple WIF. Dividing the The collected data are applied in the third formula only number of link pages (B) by number of WebPages (A), JEYSHANKAR & RAMESH BABU: WEBSITES OF UNIVERSITIES IN TAMIL NADU 73

the number of simple WIF (B/A) of each university is are at the 16th place. The Tamil Nadu Agricultural found. The Avinasilingam University for Women occupies University and Bharathiyar University are positioned at the first place with number of link pages 629, number of the seventeenth place. The Indian Institute of Technology web pages 71 and the simple Web Impact Factor 8.85. (Madras), Madurai Kamaraj University, Tamil University And a second and third place goes to National Institute and (Tirunelveli) are at the eighteenth of Technology (Tiruchirapalli) and University of Madras place. respectively. Though Anna University – (Tiruchirapalli) (8650) has more number of WebPages than the above Web Impact Factor (WIF) of Tamil Nadu’s Private Universities’ three websites, it occupies the 26th position. Because websites the number of link pages is very less compared to its number of web pages. Indian Institute of Technology There are 18 private universities in Tamil Nadu. Among (Madras) (26400) and Bharathidhasan University (17500) 18 universities, 17 universities are covering engineering have more number of web pages than the all other subjects and one university is a medical university. university website. But they got the 18th and 26th place respectively. The simple WIF is shown in Table 5. Saveetha University occupies the first place with number of link pages 1110, The self Link WIF of Tamil Nadu Government number of web pages 297 and the simple Web Impact Universities is shown in Table 3. Factor 3.75. Second and third place goes to St.Peters occupies the first place with the (815) number web pages, University and Meenakshi University respectively. (2000) self link pages and 2.45 self link WIF. Alagappa Though Amirta Vishwa Vidyapeetam University (8390) University and Tamil Virtual University are at the second has more number of web pages than the above three and third places with the self WIF of 0.72 and 0.71 websites, it occupies the 14th position because the number respectively. Manonmaniam Sundraranar University of link pages is less compared to its number of web pages. stood in the 19th position in this regard. The Gandhigram SASTRA University (3210) and Kalasalingam University Rural Institute and Tamil Nadu Dr M.G.R. Medical (2450) have more number of web pages than all the other University got eighth rank, the Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar universities’ websites. But they got the 17th and 18th place Law University, Anna University (Coimbatore) and respectively. Tamil University, got the twelfth rank as shown in the table. The and Tamil Virtual University The self link WIF of private universities in Tamil Nadu is occupies thirteenth position. The websites of Anna shown in Table 6. Meenakshi University occupies the University (Tiruchirapalli), Tamil Nadu Physical Education first place with 45 web pages, 47 self link pages and University, Indian Institute of Technology (Madras), 1.02 self link WIF. VIT University and PRIST University Madurai Kamaraj University, and Anna University occupy the second and third places with the self WIF of (Tiruchirapalli) got the sixteenth position. 0.31 and 0.25 respectively. Hindustan University and SRM University got 6th rank, Amirta Vishwa Table 4 gives the rank distribution of the Government Vidyapeetam University and SASTRA University universities website of Tamil Nadu according to their obtained the eighth position and Sri Chandrasekharendra external Web Impact Factor. The Manonmaniam Saraswati Vishwa Mahavidyalaya University and Sundraranar University occupies the first place with the Vinayaka Missions University received tenth position as number of external link pages 25, number of web pages shown in Table 6. 35 and the external web impact factor 0.71. Mother Teresa University and Annamalai University are at the Table 7 illustrates the rank distribution of the private second and third positions with the external WIF of 0.56 universities website of Tamil Nadu according to their and 0.4 respectively. Tamil Virtual University occupies external Web Impact Factor. Meenakshi University the 19th place. The Anna University (Chennai) and occupies the first place with 41external link pages, 44 Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Madras occupies web pages and with external web impact factor 0.93. seventh position. Bharathidhasan University, Tamil Nadu Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Vishwa Dr Ambedkar Law University, Tamil Nadu Physical Mahavidyalaya University and St.Peters University Education University and Anna University (Coimbatore) occupy the second and third positions with the external 74 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., JUNE 2009

Table 2 –– Simple Web Impact Factor for Government Universities Website of Tamil Nadu

Sl. No. Name of university No. of No. of Simple Rank by web links WIF simple pages pages (B) (B/A) WIF (A) 1. Avinasilingam University for Women, Coimbatore 71 629 8.85 1 2. National Institute of Technology (Tiruchirapalli) 1270 10700 8.42 2 3. University of Madras, Chennai 399 2980 7.46 3 4. Manonmaniam Sundranar university, Tirunelveli 35 253 7.22 4 5. Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram 30 153 5.1 5 6. Mother Teresa University, Kodaikanal 32 107 3.34 6 7. Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai 403 1180 2.92 7 8. , Vellore 21 61 2.9 8 9. Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, Chennai 258 715 2.77 9 10. Tamil Nadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, 111 307 2.71 10 Chennai 11. Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, Chennai 92 199 2.16 11 12. Alagappa University, Karaikudi 220 426 1.93 12 13. Tamil Virtual University, Chennai 6340 11500 1.81 13 14. Tamil Nadu Physical Education University, Chennai 41 74 1.8 18 15. Anna University, Chennai 9350 11600 1.24 15 16. Tamil University, Tanjore 175 190 1.08 16 17. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore 2310 2260 0.97 17 18. Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 26400 13800 0.52 18 19. Annamalai University, Chidambaram 815 421 0.51 19 20. Periyar University, Salem 650 210 0.32 20 21. Tamil Nadu Open university, Chennai 225 39 0.17 21 22. Anna University, Coimbatore 3650 607 0.166 22 23. Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Chennai 25 2 0.08 23 24. Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore 3770 1550 0.04 24 25. Anna University ,Tirunelveli 4780 183 0.038 25 26. Bharathidhasan University, Tiruchirapalli 17500 64 0.004 26 27. Anna University , Tiruchirapalli 8650 22 0.002 27

Table 3 –– Self Links and their Web Impact Factor Government universities’ websites of Tamil Nadu

Sl. No. Name of the university No. of Web No. of Self Self Links Rank by Pages (A) Links WIF (C/A) Self Links Pages (C) WIF

1. Annamalai University, Chidambaram 815 2000 2.45 1 2. Alagappa University, Karaikudi 220 159 0.72 2 3. Tamil Virtual University, Chennai 21 15 0.71 3 4. Tamil Nadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, Chennai 111 55 0.49 4 5. Mother Teresa University, Kodaikanal 32 12 0.37 5 6. Avinasilingam University for Women,Coimbatore 71 26 0.36 6 7. Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Chennai 25 6 0.24 7 8. Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram 30 5 0.16 8 9. Tamil Nadu Dr M.G.R. Medical University, 258 43 0.16 8 Chennai 10. Tamil Nadu Open University, Chennai 225 35 0.15 9 11. University of Madras, Chennai 399 59 0.14 10 12. National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli 1270 168 0.13 11 13. Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, 92 8 0.08 12 Chennai JEYSHANKAR & RAMESH BABU: WEBSITES OF UNIVERSITIES IN TAMIL NADU 75

14. Anna University ,Coimbatore 3650 313 0.08 12 15. Tamil University, Tanjore 175 15 0.08 12 16. Periyar University, Salem 650 50 0.07 13 17. Tamil Virtual University, Chennai 6340 476 0.07 13 18. Bharathiyar University, Chennai 3770 229 0.06 14 19. Bharathidhasan University, Tiruchirapalli 17500 950 0.05 15 20. Anna University , Tiruchirapalli 4780 215 0.04 16 21. Tamil Nadu Physical Education University, 41 2 0.04 16 Chennai 22. Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 26400 1070 0.04 16 23. Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai 403 18 0.04 16 24. Anna University ,Tirunelveli 8670 354 0.04 16 25. Anna University , Chennai 9350 356 0.03 17 26. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore 2310 53 0.02 18 27. Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli 35 18 0.01 19

Table 4 –– External Links and Web Impact Factor of Government Universities’ Websites of Tamil Nadu

Sl. No. Name of the University No of Web No of External External WIF Rank by Pages (A) Links Pages (D/A) External (D) Links WIF

1. Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli 35 25 0.71 1 2. Mother Teresa University, Kodaikanal 32 18 0.56 2 3. Annamalai University , Chidambaram 815 326 0.4 3 4. Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram 30 8 0.26 4 5. Tamil Nadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, 111 26 0.23 5 Chennai 6. Avinasilingam University for Women, Coimbatore 71 16 0.22 6 7. Anna University ,Chennai 9350 188 0.2 7 8. Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Chennai 25 5 0.2 7 9. Thiruvalluvar University, Vellore 21 4 0.19 8 10. Tamil Nadu Dr M.G.R. Medical Chennai University, 258 34 0.13 9 11. Tamil Nadu Open University, Chennai 225 29 0.12 10 12. Alagappa University, Karaikudi 220 25 0.11 11 13. University of Madras, Chennai 399 43 0.1 12 14. Periyar University, Salem 650 59 0.09 13 15. National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli 1270 91 0.07 14 16. Anna University ,Tiruchirapalli 4780 256 0.05 15 17. Bharathidhasan University, Tiruchirapalli 17500 785 0.04 16 18. Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, Chennai 92 4 0.04 16 19. Tamil Nadu Physical Education Chennai University, 41 2 0.04 16 20. Anna University ,Coimbatore 3650 176 0.04 16 21. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore 2310 72 0.03 17 22. Bharathiyar University 3770 145 0.03 17 23. Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) 26400 650 0.02 18 24. Madurai Kamaraj University 403 10 0.02 18 25. Tamil University, Tanjore 175 5 0.02 18 26. Anna University ,Tirunelveli 8670 186 0.02 18 27. Tamil Virtual University, Chennai 6340 50 0.007 19 76 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., JUNE 2009

Table 5 –– Simple Web Impact Factor for Private Universities’ Websites of Tamil Nadu

Sl. No. Name of the University No. of Web No. of Simple Simple Rank by Pages (A) Links (B) WIF simple (B/A) WIF

1 Saveetha University, Chennai 297 1110 3.73 1 2 St.Peters University, Chennai 9 32 3.55 2 3 Meenakshi University, Kanchipuram 44 92 2.09 3 4 Bharath University, Chennai 78 158 2.02 4 5 Hindustan University, Chennai 12 17 1.41 5 6 Dr. M.G.R. University, Chennai 141 184 1.3 6 7 VELs University, Chennai 28 36 1.28 7 8 Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Vishwa 103 126 1.22 8 Mahavidyalaya,Kanchipuram 9 VIT University , Vellore 2050 2500 1.21 9 10 PRIST University, Tanjore 274 326 1.18 10 11 Karunya University, Coimbatore 1540 1780 1.15 11 12 Sri Ramachandra University,Chennai 1350 1350 1 12 13 S.R.M. University, Kattamngulathur 277 2590 0.93 13 14 Amirta Vishwa Vidyapeetam University, 8390 7730 0.92 14 Coimbatore 15 Sathyabama University Chennai, 893 790 0.88 15 16 Vinayaka Missions University, Salem 375 256 0.68 16 17 SASTRA University, Tanjore 3210 1900 0.59 17 18 Kalasalingam University, Krishnankoil 2450 1390 0.56 18

Table 6 –– Self Link Web Impact Factor for Private Universities’ Websites of Tamil Nadu

Sl. Name of University No. of Web No. of Self Self Links Rank by No. Pages (A) Links (D) WIF (D/A) Self Links WIF

1 Meenakshi University, Kanchipuram 44 45 1.02 1 2 VIT University, Vellore 2050 777 0.31 2 3 PRIST University, Tanjore 274 71 0.25 3 4 St.Peters University , Chennai 9 2 0.22 4 5 VELs University, Chennai 28 5 0.17 5 6 Hindustan University, Chennai 12 2 0.16 6 7 S.R.M. University, Kattangulathur 277 45 0.16 6 8 Saveetha University, Chennai 297 39 0.13 7 9 Amirta Vishwa Vidyapeetam University, 8390 968 0.11 8 Coimbatore 10 SASTRA University, Tanjore 3210 358 0.11 8 11 Dr. M.G.R. University Chennai, 141 15 0.1 9 12 Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Vishwa 103 9 0.08 10 Mahavidyalaya University, Kanchipuram 13 Vinayaka Missions University, Salem 375 32 0.08 10 14 Sri Ramachandra University Chennai, 1350 102 0.07 11 15 Karunya University, Coimbatore 1540 84 0.05 12 16 Bharath University, Chennai 78 2 0.02 13 17 Sathyabama University Chennai, 893 12 0.01 14 18 Kalasalingam University, 2450 19 0.0077 15 Krishnankoil JEYSHANKAR & RAMESH BABU: WEBSITES OF UNIVERSITIES IN TAMIL NADU 77

Table 7 –– External Link Web Impact Factor for Private Universities’ Websites of Tamil Nadu

Sl. No. Name of the University No of Web No of External Rank by Pages External Links External (A) Links (B) WIF (B/A) WIF

1 Meenakshi University, Kanchipuram 44 41 0.93 1 2 Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati 103 25 0.24 2 Vishwa Mahavidyalaya University, Kanchipuram 3 St.Peters University, Chennai 9 4 0.22 3 4 PRIST University, Tanjore 274 56 0.2 4 5 Hindustan University Chennai, 12 2 0.16 5 6 S.R.M. University , Kattamgulathur 277 33 0.11 6 7 Amirta Vishwa Vidyapeetam University, 8390 863 0.1 7 Coimbatore 8 VIT University, Vellore 2050 178 0.08 8 9 SASTRA University , Tanjore 3210 264 0.08 8 10 Saveetha University Chennai, 297 25 0.08 8 11 VELs University, Chennai 28 2 0.07 9 12 Vinayaka Missions University, Salem 375 21 0.05 10 13 Bharath University, Chennai 78 4 0.05 10 14 Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai 1350 66 0.04 11 15 Karunya University, Coimbatore 1540 52 0.03 12 16 Dr. M.G.R. University, Chennai 141 4 0.02 13 17 Sathyabama University, Chennai 893 15 0.01 14 18 Kalasalingam University, Krishnankoil. 2450 15 0.0061 15

WIF of 0.24 and 0.22 respectively. Kalasalingam have higher number of web pages but correspondingly University occupies the 15th place. The VIT University, their link pages are very small in number, and websites SASTRA University and –HYPERLINK “http:// fall behind in their simple, self link and external link web Saveetha University “ —Saveetha University are at the impact factor. eighth position. The Vinayaka Missions University and Bharath University occupy tenth place. References 1. Paisley W, The future of bibliometrics. In: Borgman (CI). Scholarly communication and bibliometrics. ( Sage: London), Conclusion 1990, p281-299. This study has been exploratory and there is scope for 2. Rousseau R, Sitations: An exploratory study Cybermetric, 1 (1) future webometric research in this area. It would be (1997) Available at: http://www.cindoc.csic.es./cybermetrics/ articles/v1i1p1.html. (2008, Nov 28). useful to carry out a more comprehensive study 3. Almind T C and Ingwersen P, Informetric Analysis on the World comparing more institutions, and comparing web with Wide Web: Methodological Approaches to ‘Webometrics’, conventional publication output and indicators of Journal of Documentation, 53 (4) (1997) 404-426. economic and technological development. Web link 4. Rodriguez I and Gairin J M, ‘Valorando el impacto de la analysis of university websites is promising in general informacion en Internet: Alta – Vista, el “Citation Index” de la terms, but in practice web links are not entirely equivalent Red’, Revista Espanola de Documentacion Scientifica, 20 (2) (1997) 175 – 181. to citations in the scholarly literature as much of the web 5. Larson R R, ‘Bibliometrics of the World Wide Web: an content of university sites also include administrative, exploratory analysis of the intellectual structure of cyberspace’. teaching and recreational content. This is reflected in In: Hardin, Steve (ed.). Global complexity: information, chaos, the links made to a site. Also links may be made to web and control. Proceedings of the 58th ASIS Annual meeting, sites for reasons other than the citation of scholarly Baltimore, Maryland. Medford, NJ: Learned Information Inc./ content: often links are part of directory listings and are ASIS. (1996), 71-78. to an institution as a whole rather than to a specific 6. Björneborne L and Ingwersen P, Toward a Basic Framework for Webometrics, Journal of the American Society for Information research output. This study reflect that some universities Science and Technology, 55 (14) (2004) 1216–1227. 78 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., JUNE 2009

7. Cui L, Rating health Web sites using the principles of citation Newer Perspectives MLAI 2004, National Convention held an analysis: A bibliometric approach, Journal of Medical Internet 9-22 December 2004 at Dr.ALM Post Graduate Institute of Research, 1 (1) 1999 Available at: http//www.jmir.org/1999/1/ Basic Medical Sciences, University of Madras, Chennai, (2004), e4/index.html. (Accessed on 30 Nov 2008). p197-202. 8. Vreeland R C, Law libraries inn hyperspace: A Citation analysis 15. Smith A G, A tale of two web spaces: comparing sites using of World Wide Web, Law Library Journal, 92 (1) (2000) 9-25. Web Impact Factors. Journal of Documentation, 55 (5) (1999) 577-592. 9. Thelwall M , Conceptualizing documentation on the web: an 16. Thellwall M, A Research and Institutional Size Based Model evaluation of different heuristic – based models for counting for National University Web Site Interlinking, Journal of links between university web sites. Journal of the American Documentation, 58 (6) (2002) 683-694. Society for Information Science and Technology, 53 (12) 17. Notess G R, Search Engine statistics: relative size showdown. (2002) 995-1005. Available at: http:/www.notess.com search/stats/size.shtml. 10. Boudouries M A, Sigrist B and Alevizos P, Webometrics and (2008, Nov 31). the self-organization of the European Information Society, 18. Chu H, A Webometrics Analysis of ALA Accredited LIS (1999). Available at: http://hyperon.math.upatras.gr/ Schools’ Websites, 8th International Conference on webometrics/. (2008, Nov 30). Scientometrics and Informetrics Proceedings – ISSI – 2001 – 11. Ibid. Vol.1, Sydney, 16-20 July 2001. 12. Ingwersen P, The calculation of web impact factors, Journal of 19. Noruzi A, Web Impact Factors for Iranian Universities, Documentation, 54 (2) (1998) 236-243. Webology, (2) 1. (2005) 13. Thelwall M, Results from a Web Impact Factor Crawler, Journal 22. Thelwall M, Web Impact Factors and Search Engine Coverage, of Documentation 57 (2) (2001) 177-191. Journal of Documentation, 56 (2) (2000) 185-189. 14. Srivastava D and Kumar R.P, Webometrics: An overview, 21. Thelwall M, The top 100 linked pages on UK university website Information and knowledge Management in Health Sciences: interlinking, Journal of Documentation, 58 (1) (2002) 585-493.

Appendix - A Tamil Nadu Government Universities and its Websites

Sl. No Name of Universities Website Address 1 Alagapa University, Karaikudi www.algappauniversity.org 2 Anna University, Chennai www.annauniv.edu 3 Annamalai University, Chidambaram www.annamalaiuniversity.ac.in 4 Avinasilingam University for Women, Coimbatore www.avinasilingam.edu 5 Bharathidhasan University, Tiruchirapalli www.bdu.ac.in 6 Bharathiyar University, Coimbtore www.b-u.ac.in 7 Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram www.ruraluniv.org 8 Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai www.iitm.ac.in 9 Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai www.mkuniversit.org 10 Manonmaniam Sundraranar University, Tirunelveli www.msunversitytvl.net 11 Mother Teresa University, Kodaikanal www.mteresa.ac.in 12 National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli www.nitt.edu 13 Periyar University, Salem www.periaruinversity.org 14 Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, Chennai www.tndlu.org 15 Tamil Nadu Dr M.G.R. Medical University www.tnmmu.ac.in 16 Tamil Nadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, Chennai www.tanuvas.com 17 Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore www.tnau.ac.in 18 Tamil Nadu Open University, Chennai www.tnou.net 19 Tamil Virtual University, Chennai www.tamilvu.org 20 Tamil University, Tanjore www.tamiluniversity.ac.in 21 Thiruvalluvar University, Vellore www.tvuni.org 22 University of Madras Chennai, www.unom.ac.in 23 Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Chennai http://dbhps-chennai.com 24 Tamil Nadu Physical Education Univers Chennai ity, www.tnpesu.org 25 Anna University, Coimbatore www.annauniv.ac.in 26 Anna University, Tiruchirapalli www.tau.edu.in 27 Anna University, Tirunelveli www.annauniv.edu.in JEYSHANKAR & RAMESH BABU: WEBSITES OF UNIVERSITIES IN TAMIL NADU 79

Appendix - B Tamil Nadu Private Universities and its Websites S. No Name of Universities Website Address 1 Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai www.srmc.edu 2 Vinayaka Missions University, Salem www.vinayakamission.com 3 Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Vishwa Mahavidyalaya University, Kanchipuram www.kanchiuniv.ac.in 4 SASTRA University, Tanjore www.sastra.edu 5 VIT University, Vellore www.vit.ac.in 6 Sathyabama University, Chennai www.sathyabamauniv.ac.in 7 Bharath University, Chennai www.bharathuniv.com 8 S.R.M. University, Kattamgilathur www.srmuniv.ac.in 9 Amirta Vishwa Vidyapeetam University, Coimbatore www.amrita.edu 10 Dr. M.G.R. University, Chennai www.drmgrec.ac.in 11 Meenakshi University, Kanchipuram www.maher.ac.in 12 Karunya University, Coimbatore www.karunya.edu 13 Saveetha University, Chennai www.saveetha.com 14 Kalasalingam University, Krishnankoil www.kalasalingam.ac.in 15 PRIST University, Tanjore www.prist.ac.in 16 VELs University, Chennai www.velsuniv.org 17 Hindustan University, Chennai www.hindustanuniv.ac.in 18 St.Peters University, Chennai www.stpetersuniversity.org