AEGIS Conference Proceedings

1. INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON
ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS:
A correlation study between accessibility
and quantitative webometrics
Miguel Sanchez-Cerviño*
Enrique Orduña-Malea
{*misance0; enorma}@upv.es

2. INTRODUCTION
We focus on finding out if the strict use of WCAG
rules help universities to improve posi-tions in the
Ranking Web of World Universities.
 Due to the wide use of CMS, we asked ourshelves
if some in particular could be relationed with
accessibility problems in academic websites.
 Top 25 European universities were selected and
analyzed.
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INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...

3. GOALS
 To identify which CMS is used, if any, and identify
possible accessibility problems due to their use.
To analyze a possible correlation between applied
cybermetric indicators and accessibility problems in
academic websites.
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INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...

4. METHODOLOGY
 URLs of each university are collected. For each, an
accessibility and cybermetric analysis is applied to the
homepage (first week of July 2011).
 Accessibility analysis give us errors and
warnings overview.
Cybermetric analysis give us a web performing
overview.
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INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...

5. METHODOLOGY
Accessibility analysis. Types of errors/warnings:
 Number of perceptible errors/warnings (PER).
 Number of operable errors/warnings (OPE).
 Number of compressible errors/warnings (COM).
 Number of robustness errors/warnings (ROB).
 Total errors/warnings.
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INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...

6. METHODOLOGY
Webometric analysis. Indicators:
 Domain Authority (DomA).
 Domain MozRank (DmR).
 Size (S).
 Visibility (V).
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INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...

7. 25 top European universities (source: webometrics.info)
EURO
RANK
WORLD
RANK
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
19
31
32
41
43
54
62
67
74
82
85
87
93
98
100
101
103
105
106
109
110
112
113
116
124
UNIVERSITY
URL
COUNTRY
University of Cambridge
University College London
University of Southampton
University of Oxford
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
University of Oslo
University of Helsinki
University of Edinburgh
University of Glasgow
Universität Wien
Utrecht University
Università di Bologna
Durham University
Freie Universität Berlin
Uppsala University
University of Warwick
University of Leeds
Ludwig Maximilians Universität …
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Università di Pisa
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Universität Münster
University of Copenhagen
Norwegian University of Science …
University of Amsterdam
cam.ac.uk
ucl.ac.uk
soton.ac.uk
ox.ac.uk
ethz.ch
uio.no
helsinki.fi
ed.ac.uk
gla.ac.uk
univie.ac.at
uu.nl
unibo.it
dur.ac.uk
fu-berlin.de
uu.se
warwick.ac.uk
leeds.ac.uk
uni-muenchen.de
hu-berlin.de
unipi.it
ucm.es
uni-muenster.de
ku.dk
ntnu.no
uva.nl
UK
UK
UK
UK
Switzerland
Norway
Finland
UK
UK
Austria
Netherlands
Italy
UK
Germany
Sweden
UK
UK
Germany
Germany
Italy
Spain
Germany
Denmark
Norway
Netherlands
INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...
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8. WCAG Compliance (errors; warnings)
URL
PER
OPE
COM
ROB
T
ucm.es
cam.ac.uk
dur.ac.uk
gla.ac.uk
uio.no
leeds.ac.uk
soton.ac.uk
fu-berlin.de
ox.ac.uk
ucl.ac.uk
ed.ac.uk
uu.se
uni-muenster.de
hu-berlin.de
ntnu.no
univie.ac.at
warwick.ac.uk
unibo.it
uni-muenchen.de
uu.nl
ku.dk
uva.nl
unipi.it
helsinki.fi
ethz.ch
0;54
0;28
1;11
2;7
3;38
3;71
2;22
5;68
7;59
6;25
7;45
7;12
9;12
2;23
10;26
13;41
18;73
14;79
23;49
22;77
7;56
24;41
23;46
40;36
61;54
0;24
1;27
0;10
0;21
0;37
0;44
0;15
1;68
0;55
2;25
0;32
2;9
0;3
1;47
0;36
4;17
3;35
7;57
0;28
4;29
17;42
3;32
13;35
4;12
6;30
0;0
0;6
0;6
1;6
0;18
1;13
1;6
0;6
0;12
1;6
2;6
1;6
3;6
0;6
0;12
1;6
1;12
2;6
2;6
1;6
6;6
2;6
7;6
5;12
10;37
0;67
0;1
1;0
0;1
0;37
1;6
2;35
0;12
0;13
1;8
2;89
2;6
3;25
13;20
7;100
1;0
1;28
2;6
1;17
0;43
2;2
5;265
7;2
20;15
10;20
0;106
1;61
2;27
3;35
3;130
5;134
5;78
6;154
7;139
10;64
11;91
12;61
15;46
16;96
17;174
19;64
23;148
25;148
26;100
27;155
32;106
34;344
50;89
69;75
87;141
INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...
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9. Webometric performance
URL
cam.ac.uk
dur.ac.uk
ed.ac.uk
ethz.ch
fu-berlin.de
gla.ac.uk
helsinki.fi
hu-berlin.de
ku.dk
leeds.ac.uk
ntnu.no
ox.ac.uk
soton.ac.uk
ucl.ac.uk
ucm.es
uio.no
unibo.it
uni-muenchen.de
uni-muenster.de
unipi.it
univie.ac.at
uu.nl
uu.se
uva.nl
warwick.ac.uk
ucl.ac.uk
DomA DmR
85 7,23
79 6,48
82 6,98
77 7,01
80 6,85
80
6,8
76 6,76
77 6,72
74 6,64
82 6,86
74 6,54
85 7,23
82
6,8
81 6,97
84 6,45
73 6,81
75 6,56
80 6,68
79 6,62
74 6,35
83
6,8
75 6,72
73 6,65
76 6,72
83 6,64
81 6,97
S
2.740.000
489.000
787.000
1.340.000
815.000
944.000
1.600.000
1.140.000
647.000
377.000
1.210.000
1.360.000
603.000
886.000
1.160.000
1.580.000
906.000
562.000
608.000
526.000
1.690.000
1.040.000
981.000
902.000
1.020.000
886.000
V
174
56
82
136
171
87
78
69
173
95
168
218
78
292
91
130
77
45
62
29
187
71
67
97
141
292
INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...
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10. RESULTS
 No correlation was found between webometrics and
accessibility problems. External inlinks, which is considered the
indicator that could be more influenced by a poor accessible
website, does not present any correlation.
Correlation between accessibility and web performance.
INDICATOR
DomA
DmR
Size
External inlinks
EWR
TOTAL
TOTAL
PERCEPTIBLE PERCEPTIBLE
ERRORS WARNINGS
ERRORS
WARNINGS
0,49
0,23
-0,02
0,16
0,30
-0,19
-0,13
0,23
-0,25
0,36
0,44
0,21
-0,02
0,15
0,25
-0,10
-0,02
-0,01
-0,22
0,11
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11. RESULTS
No correlation between the position of each university
in the European web ranking and the accessibility
problems detected.
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RANKING POSITION
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
TOTAL ERRORS
70
80
90
100
INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...
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12. CONCLUSIONS
 Lack of correlation among webometric
indicators, and accessibility errors/warnings
(measured by T.A.W automatic test) for 25 top
European universities.
 Complete correlation with specific CMS has been
impossible to assess due to lack of information about
the applications used by all universities.
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13. CONCLUSIONS
 Webometric indicators used seem to be independent
of accessibility problems automatically detected in the
homepages, what could mean:
• Universities are linked by users who do not detect
these problems.
• Universities are linked due to other academic or
meritocratic reasons, and accessibility is not
influencing the decision of linking.
 The consideration of some accessibility indicators in
Webometric Ranking should be considered.
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INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...

14. THANKS FOR
YOUR ATTENTION.
Miguel Sanchez-Cerviño*
Enrique Orduña-Malea
{*misance0; enorma}@upv.es
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INFLUENCE OF WCAG RULES ON ACADEMIC WEBSITES RANKINGS: A CORRELATION STUDY ...