Political Science Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 1,128 political science schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 1,083 political science 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 64.9% of the 1,128 political science schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 11.5% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Blue (6.2%), black (5.9%) and yellow (5.3%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on political science school websites.

The colors used on the websites of the largest political science 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%, of political science school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on political science school websites include Verdana (23.7%) and Helvetica (9.3%).

The largest political science 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 854 political science schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 387 YouTube channel subscribers. The political science 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 971 political science schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 2,010 Twitter account followers. The political science 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 political science schools have websites, only about 19% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 81% of political science school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The political science 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 political science school websites to get a sense of the quality of these sites. The political science 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. California Lutheran University: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

The political science 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. Irvine Valley College: 0 HTML validation errors; 854 CSS validation errors