During my time as UK Web Focus based at UKOLN, University of Bath it became apparent that there was a need to gather evidence of use of services, particularly new services, in order to help identify emerging patterns of best practice.

A significant numbers of blog posts were therefore published on the UK Web Focus blog which typically analysed patterns across the 24 (originally 20) Russell Group universities and use the evidence as the basis of discussions on best practices. The survey methodology was also documented so that other institutions could apply the methodology for their own institution and compare their findings with their peers, having been alerted to potential limitations of the survey methodology and the interpretation of the findings.

The following surveys may be of interest to institutional web managers:

No. Title Date Note
General
1 University Web Sites Cost Money! 16 Nov 2010 On need for evidence, following article in Daily Telegraph.
2 Paradata for Online Surveys 29 Nov 2011 Post on the need to document the methodology used in surveys in order that findings are reproducible.
Institutional Web Site
1 HTML and RDFa Analysis of Welsh University Home Pages 17 Nov 2010 Survey of HTML characteristics of the 11 Welsh university home pages.
2 Trends For University Web Site Search Engines 5 Dec 2010 Analysis of institutional search engines used across 20 Russell Group university web sites (75% use of Google solution).
3 Are Russell Group Universities Ready for the Mobile Web? 19 Apr 2011 Survey of 20 Russell group university home pages using the mobileOK checker service.
4 Are University Web Sites in Decline? 20 Oct 2011 Survey of usage trends for 20 Russell Group universities.
5 SEO Analysis of UK Russell Group University Home Pages Using Blekko 25 Jan 2012 Survey of inbound link characteristics of 20 Russell Group university home pages suing Blekko tool.
6 Analysis of Incoming Links to Russell Group University Home Pages 1 Feb 2012 Analysis of inbound links to 20 Russell group university home page, with discussion of domain naming characteristics.
7 An SEO Analysis of UK University Web Sites 8 Feb 2012 SEO analysis across UK University Web sites using Blekko.
8 Google Search Results for Russell Group Universities Highlight Importance of Freebase 24 Sep 2012 Summary of Google search findings for 24 Russell Group universities.
9 Analysis of Google Search Traffic Patterns to Russell Group University Web Sites 1 Oct 2012 Alexa analysis of 24Russell Group university web sites.
Facebook
1 Planet Facebook Becomes Less of a Walled Garden 8 Oct 2010 Statistics for the first 8 UK universities with institutional Facebook pages.
2 Use of Facebook by Russell Group Universities 18 Jan 2011 Initial survey of Facebook usage by 20 Russell Group universities.
3 Is It Time To Ditch Facebook, When There’s Half a Million Fans Across Russell Group Universities? 26 Sep 2011 Follow-up survey which finds a total of over 50-00,000 ‘fans’ for Russell Group university Facebook pages.
4 What Next, As Facebook Use in UK Universities Continues to Grow? 18 Mar 2012 Further survey of Facebook pages for 20 Russell group universities, which finds 240+% group sine initial survey.
5 Facebook Usage for Russell Group Universities, July 2014 14 Jul 2012 Survey of Facebook pages for Russell Group universities now covers the expanded 24 universities.
6 Over One Million ‘Likes’ of Facebook Pages for the 24 Russell Group Universities 2 Aug 2012 The total number of ‘likes’ for the 24 Russell Group universities now exceeds one million.
7 Implications for Institutions of a Backlash Against Facebook 10 Dec 2014 Further survey which discusses the implications of closing institutional Facebook pages.
Twitter
1 Institutional Use of Twitter by Russell Group Universities  14 Jan 2011 Initial survey of institutional use of Twitter by the 20 Russell Group universities.
2 Institutional Use of Twitter by the 1994 Group of UK Universities  22 Feb 2011 Survey of institutional use of Twitter by the 18 1994 Group universities.
3 Evidence For The #UniWeek Campaign 19 Jun 2011 Analytics for the #UniWeek Twitter campaign in June  2011.
4 Social Analytics for Russell Group University Twitter Accounts 28 Jun 2011 Survey of 20 Russell Group university Twitter accounts using Peerindex, Klout and Twitteralyser analytics tools.
5 Social Analytics for Institutional Twitter Accounts Provided by the 24 Russell Group Universities 3 Aug 2012 Follow-up survey of 20 Russell Group university Twitter accounts using Peerindex, Klout and Twitteralyser analytics tools.
Social Media (General)
1 Links to Social Media Sites on Russell Group University Home Pages 18 Jan 2012 Analysis of links to social media services on the home pages for the  20 Russell Group universities.
2 Institutional Use of Social Media in China 23 Mar 2012 Survey of the 20 UK universities which have an institutional account on the Chinese Weibo social media service.
Other Technologies
1 Nudge: Improving Decisions About RSS Usage 13 Jul 2008 Survey of RSS feeds for Scottish university home pages.
2 RSS Feeds For Welsh University Web Sites 14 Oct 2009 Survey of RSS feeds for Welsh university home pages
3 What Are UK Universities Doing With iTunesU? 11 Oct 2010 Survey of the 10 UK universities which have a presence on iTunesU.
4 How is the UK HE Sector Using YouTube? 18 Oct 2010 Survey of UK universities with an organisational presence on YouTube.
5 Privacy Settings For UK Russell Group University Home Pages 24 May 2011 Analysis of the privacy settings of the 20 Russell Group university home pages using the W3C Privacy Dashboard.
6 Video is now a ‘must have’ in Higher Education – but what are the implications for accessibility? 22 Apr 2012 Growth of YouTube usage across selected UK Universities from October 2010 to April 2014 and discussion of implications for accessibility policies.
Web Management Community Tools
1 The Decline in JISCMail Use Across the Web Management Community 4 Jun 2010 Analysis of use of Jiscmail lists used by University Web managers between 1999 and 2009.

The findings of additional surveys will be published on the IWMW over the next few months, with the initial findings providing a benchmark to identify trends.