Methods of analysis of a modern university’s presence in the Internet communicative space

Abstract

Today a university cannot build and promote its identity unless it communicates successfully on the Internet. Internet presence is a challenging issue that requires thorough analysis. A communications audit that makes competent assessment of a university's Internet presence is necessary to ensure successful communication by universities on the Internet. This communications audit includes: assessment of Web site traffic of a university, assessment of user activity on the university's social networking sites, assessment of frequency of mention of the university on expert and educational Web portals, and justification for the university's presence in virtual cities and Web blogs. This research explores different techniques of assessment of universities' Internet presence: content analysis, press clippings, and Internet services such as Google PR, Alexa Ranking, IQBuzz, and others. This research presents an analysis of several universities: Tomsk State University (Tomsk, Russia), Tomsk Polytechnic University (Tomsk, Russia), Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia), Harvard University (Massachusetts, USA), Oxford University (Oxford, England), and other universities. The technique developed for auditing a university's communications includes an invariable component, which consists of assessment of universities' Internet presence and their exposure in scientific and educational portals and analysis of their social media profiles, and a variable component, which is determined by the researcher and depends on the objective of the audit.