Acupuncture Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 42 acupuncture schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 29 acupuncture schools have some social media presence, having accounts on at least one of the three major social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Of the schools that have a social media presence, the greatest number, almost 83% are on Facebook.

Visual Preferences

Color

Approximately 64.3% of the 42 acupuncture schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 11.9% use green as the primary color on their websites. Grey (9.5%), yellow (7.1%) and blue (4.8%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on acupuncture school websites.

The colors used on the websites of the largest acupuncture schools in the nation, are as follows:

1. University of Bridgeport: yellow 7% and purple 1.6%
2. Bastyr University: green 10% and white 9.5%
3. Northwestern Health Sciences University: green 13.8% and yellow 7.2%

Font

The largest number, nearly 35.7%, of acupuncture school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on acupuncture school websites include Verdana (21.4%) and Trebuchet Ms (14.3%).

The largest acupuncture school's websites use the following fonts:

1. University of Bridgeport: Verdana
2. Bastyr University: Geneva
3. Northwestern Health Sciences University: Verdana

Social Presence

Exactly 13 acupuncture schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 27 YouTube channel subscribers. The acupuncture schools with the greatest number of YouTube channel subscribers are:

1. University of Bridgeport: 160 subscribers
2. Bastyr University: 151 subscribers
3. National University of Health Sciences: 14 subscribers

Exactly 18 acupuncture schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 224 Twitter account followers. The acupuncture schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Bastyr University: 1,412 followers
2. Pacific College of Oriental Medicine - Chicago: 673 followers
3. National College of Natural Medicine: 343 followers

Web Metrics

Although all acupuncture schools have websites, only about 52% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 48.8% of acupuncture school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The acupuncture schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. National University of Health Sciences: 229 broken links
2. New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine: 204 broken links
3. Oregon College of Oriental Medicine: 144 broken links

It is also interesting to evaluate the number of HTML and CSS validation errors on acupuncture school websites to get a sense of the quality of these sites. The acupuncture school websites with the cleanest websites, i.e., least number of HTML and CSS validation errors are:

1. Tri - State College of Acupuncture: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
2. Southwest Acupuncture College - Santa Fe: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. Southwest Acupuncture College - Albuquerque: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

The acupuncture school websites with the greatest number of HTML and CSS validation errors include:

1. Tai Sophia Institute: 284 HTML validation errors; 3 CSS validation errors
2. Oregon College of Oriental Medicine: 203 HTML validation errors; 13 CSS validation errors
3. Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture: 21 HTML validation errors; 173 CSS validation errors