How did university departments interweave the Web: A study of connectivityand underlying factors

This paper presents two studies of the use of the WWW in Scottish universit ies and American land-grant universities. First, we investigated the relati onship between the organisational profile of a university department in Sco tland and its structural connectivity on the WWW. A Spearman rank order cor relation analysis revealed a number of strong correlation relationships bet ween structural connectivity measures and the organisational profile based on research assessment exercise ratings, teaching quality assessments, stud ent-staff ratios and funding levels. Linkage patterns from 13 Scottish acad emic sites to commercial sites in Britain and America highlighted the impac t of culture and the appropriateness of information technologies on the acc eptance of the WWW, The second study is a content survey of WWW-based educa tion activities in American land-grant universities to investigate successf ul applications of these enabling techniques in education. The two studies together highlighted cultural, political and technological interactions in the use of the WWW. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.