Information Systems Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 2,032 information systems schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 1,611 information systems 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 96% are on Facebook.

Visual Preferences

Color

Approximately 65.9% of the 2,032 information systems schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 14.7% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Blue (5.4%), yellow (4.6%) and black (4.3%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on information systems school websites.

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

1. University of Phoenix - Online Campus: grey 49%
2. Kaplan University - Davenport Campus: white 56% and blue 1.1%
3. Arizona State University: grey 34% and white 4.5%

Font

The largest number, nearly 42.9%, of information systems school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on information systems school websites include Verdana (25.6%) and Helvetica (7.1%).

The largest information systems school's websites use the following fonts:

1. University of Phoenix - Online Campus: Arial
2. Kaplan University - Davenport Campus: Times New Roman
3. Arizona State University: Arial

Social Presence

Exactly 1,101 information systems schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 292 YouTube channel subscribers. The information systems schools with the greatest number of YouTube channel subscribers are:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 113,180 subscribers
2. Harvard University: 28,331 subscribers
3. Yale University: 20,055 subscribers

Exactly 1,279 information systems schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 1,455 Twitter account followers. The information systems schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Harvard University: 69,704 followers
2. Indiana University - Bloomington: 27,945 followers
3. University of Phoenix - Online Campus: 26,204 followers

Web Metrics

Although all information systems schools have websites, only about 23% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 77.9% of information systems school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The information systems schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. Central Arizona College: 93,584 broken links
2. Minnesota West Community and Technical College: 26,086 broken links
3. Tarrant County College District: 14,140 broken links

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

1. Pima Community College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
2. Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. California Lutheran University: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

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

1. Chippewa Valley Technical College: 121 HTML validation errors; 942 CSS validation errors
2. Bergen Community College: 178 HTML validation errors; 869 CSS validation errors
3. Alabama A & M University: 63 HTML validation errors; 905 CSS validation errors