Physics Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 839 physics schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 803 physics 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 63.9% of the 839 physics schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 12.3% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Yellow (6.1%), black (6%) and blue (6%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on physics school websites.

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

1. Arizona State University: grey 34% and white 4.5%
2. Ohio State University - Main Campus: white 30% and grey 3.4%
3. University of Central Florida: white 46% and black 1.6%

Font

The largest number, nearly 41.8%, of physics school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on physics school websites include Verdana (23.2%) and Helvetica (9.3%).

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

1. Arizona State University: Arial
2. Ohio State University - Main Campus: Helvetica
3. University of Central Florida: Arial

Social Presence

Exactly 632 physics schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 509 YouTube channel subscribers. The physics 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 715 physics schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 2,439 Twitter account followers. The physics schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Harvard University: 69,704 followers
2. Indiana University - Bloomington: 27,945 followers
3. Arizona State University: 24,295 followers

Web Metrics

Although all physics schools have websites, only about 18% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 82.3% of physics school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The physics schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. Creighton University: 7,788 broken links
2. Northwest Missouri State University: 6,291 broken links
3. University of Michigan - Dearborn: 5,490 broken links

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

1. California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
2. Foothill College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. Monterey Peninsula College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

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

1. University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point: 0 HTML validation errors; 1,213 CSS validation errors
2. Alabama A & M University: 63 HTML validation errors; 905 CSS validation errors
3. University of Colorado Denver: 0 HTML validation errors; 794 CSS validation errors