Figure 1 - Histogram of Numbers of Links versus Frequency
A survey of links from UK Universities and Colleges institutional home pages to remote services was carried out. Very few institutions provided links to JISC services from their institutional home page. A number of institutions, although this relatively few, provided links to computer organisations (most notably Netscape and Microsoft) and to information about the region.
On the evening of Friday, 24th October 1997 the WebWatch project, based at UKOLN, ran a robot which retrieved HTML elements from institutional home pages of UK University and Colleges, as defined by the HESA list [1]. The robot successfully accessed 158 resources.
A report on the subsequent analysis is to be published in Ariadne [2]. This report gives a summary of links to JISC services. In order to give some context to hypertext linking profiles from institutional home pages, it also summarises links to other services and commercial organisations.
Table 1 shows the institutional home pages which contain links to JISC services, as defined in the list of JISC services [3]. The data was searched for the JISC service name, except where indicated in brackets.
| Service and Nos. of Links | Linked from |
| NISS - 2 links | http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ "Anglia Polytechnic University" |
| http://www.marjon.ac.uk/ "University College of St Mark & St John" | |
| BIDS - 1 link | http://www.uwcm.ac.uk/ "University of Wales College of Medicine" [http and telnet links] |
| AHDS - 1 link | http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ "King's College London" |
| UKOLN - 1 link | http://www.aber.ac.uk/ "University of Wales Aberystwyth" [out of date link to Gopher server] |
| UKERNA - 1 link | http://sun1.haac.ac.uk/ "Harper Adams Agricultural College" |
| JA (http://www.ja.net/) - 1 link | http://www.sghms.ac.uk/ " St. George's Hospital Medical School" |
| AGOCG - 0 links | |
| BUBL - 0 links | |
| BUFVC - 0 links | |
| CHEST - 0 links | |
| COPAC - 0 links | |
| Data Archive - 0 links (http://dawww.essex.ac.uk/) | |
| EDINA - 0 links | |
| HENSA - 0 links | |
| Mailbase - 0 links | |
| MIDAS - 0 links | |
| SOSIG - 0 links | |
| JISC - 0 links |
There were 4 links to the JANET AUP document available at http://www.ja.net/documents/use.html from the following institutional home pages:
| Service and Nos. of Links | Linked from |
| OMNI - 1 link | http://www.uwcm.ac.uk/
"University of Wales College of Medicine" |
| Edulib (http://www.hull.ac.uk/Hull/CTLS_Web/edulib/edulib.html) - 1 link | http://www.chihe.ac.uk/ "Chichester Institute of Higher Education" |
There were 2 links to the Dearing Report (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/) from:
Note that 6 other institutions had links on their home page to internal information about the Dearing report.
The following tables show links to commercial companies and non-profit-making organisations from institutional home pages.
| Service and Nos. of Links | Linked from | Comment |
| Netscape - 7 links | http://www.bathhe.ac.uk/ "Bath Spa University College" | Help page on browser policy |
| http://www.bretton.ac.uk/ "University College Bretton Hall" | Contains Netscape 2.0 icon (also has Internet Explorer icon) | |
| http://www.uce.ac.uk/ "University of Central England" | A FRAMEd site. The page for non-frames capable browser suggests downloading Netscape. | |
| http://www.luton.ac.uk/ "University of Luton" | Contains Netscape Communicator icon best "Best Viewed" commentary (also has Internet Explorer icon) | |
| http://www.port.ac.uk/ "University of Portsmouth" | A FRAMEd site. The page for non-frames capable browser suggests downloading Netscape. | |
| http://www.ucrysj.ac.uk/ "University College of Ripon and York St John" | Contains Netscape icon best "This site designed for" commentary | |
| http://www.sghms.ac.uk/ "St. George's Hospital Medical School" | Contains Netscape Communicator icon | |
| Microsoft - 5 links | http://www.bretton.ac.uk/ "University College Bretton Hall" | Contains Microsft Internet Explorer icon (Also has Netscape icon) |
| http://www.uce.ac.uk/ "University of Central England" | A FRAMEd site. The page for non-frames capable browser suggests downloading Internet Explorer. | |
| http://www.luton.ac.uk/ "University of Luton" | Contains Internet Explorer icon best "Best Viewed" commentary (also has Netscape Communicator icon) | |
| http://www.norcol.ac.uk/ "Northern College, Scotland" | A FRAMEd site. Contains Internet Explorer icon with "Best experienced" commentary. | |
| http://www.tvu.ac.uk/ "Thames Valley University" | Link seems to have been removed since trawl. | |
| Sun - 1 link | http://www.bretton.ac.uk/ "University College Bretton Hall" | Link to http://java.sun.com/ |
| SGI - 1 link | http://www.sghms.ac.uk/ "St. George's Hospital Medical School" | Link to http://www.sgi.com/ and "Powered by Silicon Graphics" commentary |
| Macromedia - 1 link (http://www.macromedia.com/Tools/Shockwave/) | http://www.bretton.ac.uk/ "University College Bretton Hall" | A link to the Shockwave plugin |
| Browserwatch - 1 link (http://www.browserwatch.com/) | http://www.bathhe.ac.uk/ "Bath Spa University College" | A help page about browsers and browser plugins |
| U-NET - 1 link (http://www.u-net.net/services/janet/) | http://www.qmced.ac.uk/ "Queen Mary College Edinburgh" | Link in menu item: "Internet and JANET Access" |
| Demon - 1 link http://www.demon.net/inews/search.html | http://www.umds.ac.uk/ "United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals" | Link in menu item: "Major Web Listings and Search Engines" |
| Service and Nos. of Links | Linked from | Comment |
| counter.digits.com - 2 links | http://www.ucscarb.ac.uk/ "University College Scarborough" | A page counter |
| http://www.scot.ac.uk/ "Scottish College of Textiles" | A page counter, together with a link to the page counter home page | |
| Recreational Software Advisory Council on the Internet (http://www.rsac.org/) - 2 links | http://www.ehche.ac.uk/ "Edge Hill College" | An RSAC icon |
| http://www.luton.ac.uk/ "University of Luton" | An RSAC icon | |
| Apache (http://www.apache.org/) - 2 links | http://www.lsu.soton.ac.uk/ "LSU College of Higher Education" | A "Powered by Apache" icon and link |
| http://www.rfhsm.ac.uk/ "Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine" | A "Powered by Apache" icon and link | |
| Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/) - 1 link | http://www.uwcm.ac.uk/ "University of Wales College of Medicine" | A "Support Freedom of Speech on the Internet" icon and link |
| Vocal Computers (http://www.vocal.co.uk/) - 1 link | http://www.buckscol.ac.uk/ "Buckinghamshire University College" | A "Copyright Vocal Computers Ltd. 1997" statement and link. |
| Resource and Nos. of Links | Linked from | Comment |
| Hertsfordshire Visual Arts Forum (http://www.hvaf.org.uk/) - 1 link | http://www.herts.ac.uk/ "University Of Hertfordshire" | Link in menu to list of local organisations |
| http://www.open.gov.uk/welwyn/whhome.htm | http://www.herts.ac.uk/ "University Of Hertfordshire" | Link in menu to list of local organisations |
| http://www.stalbans.gov.uk/ | http://www.herts.ac.uk/ "University Of Hertfordshire" | Link in menu to list of local organisations |
| http://www.herts.co.uk/ | http://www.herts.ac.uk/ "University Of Hertfordshire" | Link in menu to list of local organisations |
| http://www.terrapin.co.uk/watford/ | http://www.herts.ac.uk/ "University Of Hertfordshire" | Link in menu to list of local organisations |
| http://www.hants.gov.uk/ | http://www.solent.ac.uk/ "Southampton Institute" | Link to community information |
| http://birmingham.gov.uk/ - 2 links | http://www.westhill.ac.uk/ "Westhill College of Higher Education" | Link to menu item about Birmingham |
| http://www.bham.ac.uk/ "University Of Birmingham" | Icon and link to information about "The City and Region" | |
| http://www.tcol.co.uk/orgs/harper/harper.htm - 1 link | http://sun1.haac.ac.uk/ "Harper Adams Agricultural College" | Link to the corresponding Commonwealth Website |
| http://recruitnet.guardian.co.uk/ - 1 link | http://www.unl.ac.uk/welcome.html "University of North London" | Form to Guardian jobs page for jbs at UNL |
| http://host1.kbnet.co.uk/rleggat/westminster/ - 1 link | http://www.ox-west.ac.uk/ "Westminster College Oxford" | |
| http://www.netins.net/showcase/umsource/ - 1 link | http://www.ox-west.ac.uk/ "Westminster College Oxford" | |
| http://on-tyne.north-east.co.uk/ - 1 link | http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ "University of Newcastle upon Tyne" | Link to information about the city |
| http://www.broadnet.co.uk/ - 1 link | http://www.wlv.ac.uk/ "University of Wolverhampton" | Link to "a major University of Wolverhampton R&D project" |
| http://ds.dial.pipex.com/ciem/ - 1 link | http://www.chihe.ac.uk/ "Chichester Institute of Higher Education" | Icon and link to "The Centre for International Education and Management" |
| http://www.covuni.demon.co.uk/ - 1 link | http://www.coventry.ac.uk/ "Coventry University" | Link to the International Office |
| http://www.tcp.co.uk/~lsu/ - 1 link | http://www.lsu.soton.ac.uk/ "LSU College of Higher Education" | A menu link to "Historical & Political Studies" |
Figure 1 gives a histogram showing the number of links from institutional
home pages.
Figure 1 - Histogram of Numbers of Links versus Frequency
As can be see from Figure 1, the mean value for numbers of links is 17, with the median being in the range 10-15 links.
The analysis shows that there are only a small number of links to JISC services from UK University and Colleges home pages. However this should not be surprising, as most institution home pages provide only small numbers of links.
There were rather more links to computing companies, in particular to Netscape and Microsoft.
Eight institutions provided links to information about the local area hosted by commercial or goivernment services.
The following recommendations are made:
Note that the WebWatch robot software currently does not follow Web pages which make use of <FRAMES> or which use the <META> HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" attribute which provide redirection to other pages.