Websites of universities in Tamil Nadu: a webometric study

Annals of Library and Information Studies JEYSHANKAR & RAMESH BABU: WEBSITES OF UNIVERSITIES IN TAMIL NADU 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, Alagappa University, Karaikkudi, Tamil Nadu, E-mail: jeyshankar71@yahoo.com Professor, Department of Information Science, University of Madras, Chennai 600 005, E-mail:beeraka52@yahoo.com 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 Metrics studies in library and information science such as librametrics, bibliometrics, scientometrics, informetrics are well known and a number of studies have been carried out in these areas. The metric studies are used to measures scholarly communication; identify research trends and growth of knowledge; identify users of different subjects; estimate comprehensiveness of secondary periodicals; forecast past, present and future publishing trends; adopt an accurate weeding and stacking policy; develop norms and standardization; identify authorship and its trends in documents on various subjects; predict productivity of publishers, individual authors, organizations, country or that of an entire discipline. The recent years have witnessed the emergence of webometrics or cybermetrics. Webometric covers research of all network based communication using informetric or other quantitative measure. Webometrics, in future, may become one of the most interesting research area for the vast collection of electronic information available on the publicly indexable web. Paisley 1 rightly identified this area as the future domain of bibliometric research. Library and information science is concerned with how different information resources and information structures (interrelated of information resources) are generated, organized, distributed and utilized by different users in different contexts. For example, situation analysis, coined by Rousseau 2, considers hyperlinks to and from other websites as bibliographical citations in traditional analysis. Quantitative studies of the web have been named webometrics by Almind and Ingwersen 3. Rodríguez and Gairín 4 and Larson 5 are also pioneers with their early exploratory link structure analysis with the first pure informetric analysis of the web. Bojorneborne 6 and Ingwersen defined webometrics as: the study of the quantitative aspects of the construction and use of information resources, structures and technologies on the web drawing on bibliometric and informetric approaches. This definition covers the construction side and usage side of the web which embraces the four main areas of Webometrics study. These are : Web page content analysis Web link structure analysis (e.g. Hyperlink, Self link and External link) Web usage analysis (e.g. exploiting log files for users searching and browsing behavior), and Web technology analysis (including search engine performance) Being a document network with documents in the shape of web pages interconnected by links into complex 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 WWW is the presentation of hypertext documents, like icons, or highlighted phrases. Since the mid 1990 s, increasing efforts have been made to investigate the nature and properties of World Wide Web by applying modern informetric methodologies to the contents, link structures and search engines. The World Wide Web has now become one of the main sources of information on academic and research activities. It is an excellent platform to test new methods of evaluating webometric activities. Of the webometric studies conducted so far, some studies have concentrated on certain parameters of websites such as incoming links (in-links), outgoing links (out-links), and co-links. Cui 7 analyzed out-links of 19 top medical schools websites by using a freeware programme named Check Web (http://www.alterego.fr/dev/chkweb.html). The out-links were then ranked by situation frequency and Top Level Domain (TLD (e.g., GOV and EDU for United States; AU and CN for other countries). A group of 78 highly cited websites in health science was finally identified. Collecting out link data with different shareware tools and in-links from Alta Vista, Vreeland 8 ranked 156 websites of ABA (American Bar Association) accredited law school libraries by visibility (i.e., number of in-links) and luminosity (i.e., number of out links). No clear correlation was found between visibility and luminosity. Thelwall 9 has studied the previous web link studies and have used the web pages as the primary indivisible source document for counting purposes. Three alternative heuristics are defined for the educational arena based upon the directory, the domain and the whole university site. These are then compared by implementing them on a set of 108 UK university institutional websites under the assumption that a more effective heuristic will tend to produce results that correlate more highly with institutional research productivity. It was discovered that the domain and directory models were able to successfully reduce the impact of anomalous linking behaviour between pairs of web sites, with the latter being the method of choice. Reasons are then given as to why a document model on its own cannot eliminate all anomalies in web linking behaviour. Finally, the results from all models give a clear confirmation of the very strong association between the research productivity of a UK university and the number of incoming links from its peers web sites. Boudouries, Sigrist and Alevizos 10 conducted a study of the websites of the institutions participating in or related to the SOEIS (Self Organisation of the European Information Society) project using Alta Vista as data collection instrument. The researchers performed a multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis of co-links among 10 such sites, displaying the underlying structure among them. Boudouries 11 and his colleagues also attempted to show the triple-helix-ness (i.e., the interrelationship and connectivity among universities, governments and industries) in both Europe and the United states by analyzing link types and in-links of 112 websites. They found that, among other things, the US government is by far the most triple helixed. Europe universities have excellent triple helix-ness as well. Ingwersen 12 proposed a set of new measurements for measuring the online impact of areas of the web, including university web sites. The best of these, the (external) Web Impact Factor (WIF or (Web-IF), was designed to measure the average online impact of a set of WebPages by counting the in-linking pages outside the set in question, and then dividing by the number of pages inside the set. Thelwall 13 later modified WIF for universities by using another measure of the size of a university than a count of pages in its domain: its full time academic members of staff. This was justified by reasons that eventually lead to the creation of Alternative Document Models (ADMs) discussed earlier, for example, that universities may post huge numbers of externally useless pages on their site, such as server log statistics, which would otherwise reduce their average impact. Scope of the present study World Wide Web (WWW) is a global network of internet servers providing access to documents that allows content to be interlinked, locally and remotely. It is a vast network of linked hypertext files, stored on computers throughout the world that can provide a computer user with information on a huge variety of subjects. World Wide Web has a greater impact on communications and society than any other technology. It is now widely used as one of the primary means 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- journals, e-print archives and online conference proceedings. The internet and more specifically the web has quickly become a major information medium and influences several aspects of our lives. Srivastava and Kumar 14 point out that webometrics is a systematic evaluation and analysis of all aspects of the web phenomena and can help us understand how this medium works. The present paper examines and explores through webometric study, websites of universities in Tamil Nadu. There are 46 universities in Tamil Nadu. Among them Tamil Nadu Educational University has no website, so only the web sites of 45 universities have only been used considered for the study. The study aimed to establish a kind of academic ranking of websites of universities in Tamil Nadu by evaluating their WIF. The study on the ranking will help the readers to compare and identify universities websites in Tamil Nadu by their WIF. Objectives of the study The primary objective of this study is to formulate a methodology for the calculation of web impact factor at three hierarchical levels TLD - Top Level Domain, SLD - Sub Level Domain and WSLD. Other objectives include: To identify and analyze websites of universities in Tamil Nadu, To identify the domain systems of all the universities websites in Tamil Nadu as per the web pages, To calculate the number of web pages, number of link pages, number of self link pages and external link pages of the universities websites in Tamil Nadu and rank them, and To calculate the simple Web Impact Factor (WIF), self link Web Impact Factor and external Web Impact factor of the universities websites in Tamil Nadu and rank them as per the WIF. Concept of websites A website is a collection of interlinked web pages on a related topic, usually under a single domain name, which includes an intended starting file called a home page. From the home page, one can get to all the other pages on the website. Each site is owned and managed by an individual, company or organization. The complete set of documents residing on all internet servers use the HTTP protocol is accessible to users via a simple pointand-click system. World Wide Web is a part of the internet that contains linked text, image, sound, and video documents. Methodology of study This study used Alta Vista (www.altavista.com) search engine for collecting raw data. Alta Vista s advanced web queries was used to find the approximate number of pages in each website that link to one another. The Alta Vista query is based upon the lexicon of the domain names of web page URLs. The main search was conducted using the keyword like all the university website address. When undertaking WIF study, it is necessary to select a suitable search engine that will count the number of pages in the web site and the number of pages linking to the web site. Smith 15 stated that the website should have a large database, covering as much of the web as possible. The data collection method extensively makes use of four special key words like domain, link domain, link domain AND domain, and link domain AND NOT domain from AltaVista Search engines as explained and surveyed by Thelwall 16, Notess 17 and Chu 18. A series of online snapshot searches over a month (27/10/2008 26/11/ 2008) have been performed on the selected search engine by keeping the various search conditions constant. The four search statement methods used to collect data for each university websites are as follows: domain:tnuniv.ac.in: It will report number of web pages at the website under www.tnuniv.ac.in. linkdomain:tnuniv.ac.in: It will report total number of web pages linking to the website under www.tnuniv.ac.in. linkdomain:tnuniv.ac.in AND domain:tnuniv.ac.in: It provides a complete report of number of web pages under www.tnuniv.ac.in which provides hyperlinks to this website www.tnuniv.ac.in; it is called self links pages (links from the same website).

72 ANN. LIB. INF. STU., JUNE 2009 linkdomain:tnuniv.ac.in AND NOT domain:tnuniv.ac.in: It provides the report number of pages not under www.tnuniv.ac.in. But this websites provide hyperlinks to www.tnuniv.ac.in. It is called external - link pages. Web Impact Factor WIFs are part of the methodology of webometrics. A Web Impact Factor (WIF) is a relatively new measure of the extent to which a site is linked to by other sites, and is analogous to a citation count in the print environment. Broadly, it is a measure of the extent to which it is linked to and recognized by other sites. The WIF is a form of measurement used to determine the relative standing of web sites in particular fields, or a country; for instance, academic web sites in a country. The higher the impact factor, the higher the perceived reputation of the web site. The idea of applying bibliometric techniques to the web was proposed by Noruzi 19. According to the author, WIF may be defined as the ratio of links made to a website, to the number of pages at the website. The WIF provides quantitative tools for ranking, evaluating, categorizing, and comparing web sites, toplevel domains and sub-domains. There are three types of links - The simple WIF, the ratio of all links to the number of pages. The internal WIF, the ratio of internal links within the site to number of pages. The external WIF, the ratio of links made from external sites to the target site, to the number of pages at the site. Thelwall 20 has attempted to correlate WIFs with external measures of research output of British universities and found that a WIF concentrated on research based pages gave the highest correlation with external measures. Thelwall 21 has used crawler to find WIFs for UK University website interlinking. The collected data are applied in the third formula only Table 1 Classification of universities by the domain Sl. No Domain Government Private Total 1.ac.in 10 9 19 4.org 8 2 10 2.edu 3 4 7 6.com 2 3 5 3.edu.in 2 Nil 2 5.net 2 Nil 2 Total 27 18 45 Web Impact Factors for all the three levels can be formulated in the following way. Number of web pages linking to 1. Web Impact for Top the Top Level Domain Level Domain (TLD) = Number of web pages in the Top LevelDomain Number of web pages linking 2. Web Impact for Sub - to the Sub Level Domain Level Domain (SLD) = Number of web pages in the Sub Level Domain Number of web pages linking to the Website 3. Web Impact Factor = (WSLD) Number of web pages in the website Analysis and discussion Classification of universities by the domain Table 1 shows the classification of universities by the domain name. Nineteen universities have the domain name.ac.in. Among them there are 10 government and 9 private universities. Ten universities have the domain name.org. among them there are 8 government and 2 private universities. Seven universities have the domain name.edu. Among them there are 3 government and 4 private universities. 2 government and 3 private universities have domain name.com. Two government universities have the domain edu.in and rest of the 2 government universities have the.org domain. Web Impact Factor (WIF) of Tamil Nadu Government Universities websites The simple WIF as shown in Table 2 illustrates the rank distribution of the government universities website of Tamil Nadu according to their simple WIF. Dividing the 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 found. The Avinasilingam University for Women occupies the first place with number of link pages 629, number of web pages 71 and the simple Web Impact Factor 8.85. And a second and third place goes to National Institute of Technology (Tiruchirapalli) and University of Madras respectively. Though Anna University (Tiruchirapalli) (8650) has more number of WebPages than the above three websites, it occupies the 26 th position. Because the number of link pages is very less compared to its number of web pages. Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) (26400) and Bharathidhasan University (17500) have more number of web pages than the all other university website. But they got the 18 th and 26 th place respectively. The self Link WIF of Tamil Nadu Government Universities is shown in Table 3. Annamalai University occupies the first place with the (815) number web pages, (2000) self link pages and 2.45 self link WIF. Alagappa University and Tamil Virtual University are at the second and third places with the self WIF of 0.72 and 0.71 respectively. Manonmaniam Sundraranar University stood in the 19th position in this regard. The Gandhigram Rural Institute and Tamil Nadu Dr M.G.R. Medical University got eighth rank, the Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, Anna University (Coimbatore) and Tamil University, got the twelfth rank as shown in the table. The Periyar University and Tamil Virtual University occupies thirteenth position. The websites of Anna University (Tiruchirapalli), Tamil Nadu Physical Education University, Indian Institute of Technology (Madras), Madurai Kamaraj University, and Anna University (Tiruchirapalli) got the sixteenth position. Table 4 gives the rank distribution of the Government universities website of Tamil Nadu according to their external Web Impact Factor. The Manonmaniam Sundraranar University occupies the first place with the number of external link pages 25, number of web pages 35 and the external web impact factor 0.71. Mother Teresa University and Annamalai University are at the second and third positions with the external WIF of 0.56 and 0.4 respectively. Tamil Virtual University occupies the 19 th place. The Anna University (Chennai) and Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, Madras occupies seventh position. Bharathidhasan University, Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, Tamil Nadu Physical Education University and Anna University (Coimbatore) are at the 16 th place. The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and Bharathiyar University are positioned at the seventeenth place. The Indian Institute of Technology (Madras), Madurai Kamaraj University, Tamil University and Anna University (Tirunelveli) are at the eighteenth place. Web Impact Factor (WIF) of Tamil Nadu s Private Universities websites There are 18 private universities in Tamil Nadu. Among 18 universities, 17 universities are covering engineering subjects and one university is a medical university. The simple WIF is shown in Table 5. Saveetha University occupies the first place with number of link pages 1110, number of web pages 297 and the simple Web Impact Factor 3.75. Second and third place goes to St.Peters University and Meenakshi University respectively. Though Amirta Vishwa Vidyapeetam University (8390) has more number of web pages than the above three websites, it occupies the 14 th position because the number of link pages is less compared to its number of web pages. SASTRA University (3210) and Kalasalingam University (2450) have more number of web pages than all the other universities websites. But they got the 17 th and 18 th place respectively. The self link WIF of private universities in Tamil Nadu is shown in Table 6. Meenakshi University occupies the first place with 45 web pages, 47 self link pages and 1.02 self link WIF. VIT University and PRIST University occupy the second and third places with the self WIF of 0.31 and 0.25 respectively. Hindustan University and SRM University got 6th rank, Amirta Vishwa Vidyapeetam University and SASTRA University obtained the eighth position and Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Vishwa Mahavidyalaya University and Vinayaka Missions University received tenth position as shown in Table 6. Table 7 illustrates the rank distribution of the private universities website of Tamil Nadu according to their external Web Impact Factor. Meenakshi University occupies the first place with 41external link pages, 44 web pages and with external web impact factor 0.93. Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Vishwa Mahavidyalaya University and St.Peters University 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. Thiruvalluvar University, 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 University occupies the 15th place. The VIT University, SASTRA University and HYPERLINK http:// Saveetha University Saveetha University are at the eighth position. The Vinayaka Missions University and Bharath University occupy tenth place. Conclusion This study has been exploratory and there is scope for future webometric research in this area. It would be useful to carry out a more comprehensive study comparing more institutions, and comparing web with conventional publication output and indicators of economic and technological development. Web link analysis of university websites is promising in general terms, but in practice web links are not entirely equivalent to citations in the scholarly literature as much of the web content of university sites also include administrative, teaching and recreational content. This is reflected in the links made to a site. Also links may be made to web sites for reasons other than the citation of scholarly content: often links are part of directory listings and are to an institution as a whole rather than to a specific research output. This study reflect that some universities 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. References 1. Paisley W, The future of bibliometrics. In: Borgman (CI). Scholarly communication and bibliometrics. ( Sage: London), 1990, p281-299. 2. Rousseau R, Sitations: An exploratory study Cybermetric, 1 (1) (1997) Available at: http://www.cindoc.csic.es./cybermetrics/ articles/v1i1p1.html. (2008, Nov 28). 3. Almind T C and Ingwersen P, Informetric Analysis on the World Wide Web: Methodological Approaches to Webometrics, Journal of Documentation, 53 (4) (1997) 404-426. 4. Rodriguez I and Gairin J M, Valorando el impacto de la informacion en Internet: Alta Vista, el Citation Index de la Red, Revista Espanola de Documentacion Scientifica, 20 (2) (1997) 175 181. 5. Larson R R, Bibliometrics of the World Wide Web: an exploratory analysis of the intellectual structure of cyberspace. In: Hardin, Steve (ed.). Global complexity: information, chaos, and control. Proceedings of the 58 th ASIS Annual meeting, Baltimore, Maryland. Medford, NJ: Learned Information Inc./ ASIS. (1996), 71-78. 6. Björneborne L and Ingwersen P, Toward a Basic Framework for Webometrics, Journal of the American Society for Information 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 analysis: A bibliometric approach, Journal of Medical Internet Research, 1 (1) 1999 Available at: http//www.jmir.org/1999/1/ e4/index.html. (Accessed on 30 Nov 2008). 8. Vreeland R C, Law libraries inn hyperspace: A Citation analysis of World Wide Web, Law Library Journal, 92 (1) (2000) 9-25. 9. Thelwall M, Conceptualizing documentation on the web: an evaluation of different heuristic based models for counting links between university web sites. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53 (12) (2002) 995-1005. 10. Boudouries M A, Sigrist B and Alevizos P, Webometrics and the self-organization of the European Information Society, (1999). Available at: http://hyperon.math.upatras.gr/ webometrics/. (2008, Nov 30). 11. Ibid. 12. Ingwersen P, The calculation of web impact factors, Journal of Documentation, 54 (2) (1998) 236-243. 13. Thelwall M, Results from a Web Impact Factor Crawler, Journal of Documentation 57 (2) (2001) 177-191. 14. Srivastava D and Kumar R.P, Webometrics: An overview, Information and knowledge Management in Health Sciences: Newer Perspectives MLAI 2004, National Convention held an 9-22 December 2004 at Dr.ALM Post Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Madras, Chennai, (2004), p197-202. 15. Smith A G, A tale of two web spaces: comparing sites using Web Impact Factors. Journal of Documentation, 55 (5) (1999) 577-592. 16. Thellwall M, A Research and Institutional Size Based Model for National University Web Site Interlinking, Journal of Documentation, 58 (6) (2002) 683-694. 17. Notess G R, Search Engine statistics: relative size showdown. Available at: http:/www.notess.com search/stats/size.shtml. (2008, Nov 31). 18. Chu H, A Webometrics Analysis of ALA Accredited LIS Schools Websites, 8 th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics Proceedings ISSI 2001 Vol.1, Sydney, 16-20 July 2001. 19. Noruzi A, Web Impact Factors for Iranian Universities, Webology, (2) 1. (2005) 22. Thelwall M, Web Impact Factors and Search Engine Coverage, Journal of Documentation, 56 (2) (2000) 185-189. 21. Thelwall M, The top 100 linked pages on UK university website 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