This is my fourth post on the best websites in the tertiary education sector – full details are here, including some important caveats.  I’ll assume that all websites target potential and current students, but I’m looking for:

• effective use of Facebook, Twitter or other social media (and if I can’t find links to them on a homepage, that’s not very effective – hmm, after reviewing some that are student-focused, I can see why they’re put on sub-pages);
• an x-factor that makes people come back to the site; and
• some way to engage broader stakeholders, such as employers or the community.

This post is about the eight universities, which have websites that are, overall, a class above the rest of the sector. All of them have alumni and giving sections, while they all have RSS feeds too (an essential if you want people to track new content in your website, which will appeal most to wider stakeholders rather than students, who can be contacted via email, intranets and other internal software). They’re well designed and usually quite large, with multiple subsites.

1. University of Auckland - They have 8,765 FB fans and have OK interaction – unlike most institutional sites, though, the Wall is open for anyone to post an update. The website itself is enormous, a bit like the university. There is a strong alumni section and the UniServices site has an enormous amount of detail on commercialisation linkages from centres of expertise to investment opportunities. Employers can access a recruitment section that covers everything employers might need, inclouding NZUniCareerHub, a site that links 7/8 unis and helps employers link with them.  The community page is a bit weak. There are, of course, large divisions within universities. I don’t intend to review them in depth across the sector but UoA’s NICAI has podcasts, while the Business School has FB, Twitter and LinkedIn links.
2. AUT - I couldn’t find a FB page, but I found an inactive general AUT Twitter and an active one for study abroad (334 followers). AUT has less research activity than its neighbour, so their pages aren’t as detailed, but they have useful info. I particularly like their Getting Involved with AUT page as it lets businesses know simply and quickly how they can work with AUT. Their Business Innovation Centre site is pretty good. The community part is weak.  Overall, it does the business, but I didn’t get any x-factor.
3. University of Waikato - I found a community FB page (automatically created by FB and therefore not really relevant to this exercise) but I also found an international FB page (961 fans)  I really like their research section as you can click through to everything from there – it has lists of experts, services and more. Waikato is weak on employer and community links. A good site, but no x-factor.
4. Massey University - They have a FB page (1,332 fans) that is mainly an information conduit. Massey has a couple of Twitter accounts for news and campus issues with 387 followers in total. I’ll give Massey the x-factor for their v-log with the VC - Steve Maharey doing a Video Blog for students. There have been five since May last year and Steve and the technical team have got much better since the first one. Steve’s videos are part of the wider Massey University YouTube channel, which is pretty popular – there is also an audiovisual content section to their news pages. Digging down I found a Flickr page too.They have specialist newsletters that you can sign up to according to your interest. The excessive white space on Massey’s site has always driven me to distraction but they do have some good content. The weakness is that I just couldn’t easily work out where to go if I was an external party wanting to employ students, contract some research or engage as a member of the community. There is a major research section to the site but it seems to be aimed at staff and students.
5. Victoria University of Wellington - I couldn’t easily find any social media connections. The research section is a bit like Waikato’s  (in one place) but it is easier to drill down to relevant detail – I’d put it just behind Auckland (mainly due to Auckland’s depth). The information for parents and friends section has a good title but it’s just another course marketing page.
6. University of Canterbury - I found a graduates FB page (3,728 fans) along with LinkedIn (1,178) and Twitter (91 followers). I do like their campus virtual tour and it gets the x-factor award. Their research pages have all the info you might need. I like their BlueFern site about their supercomputing facility and their Research and Innovation site – both are welcoming to external parties eg you’re given the option Got an Idea?. There are separate sections from the homepage for Visitors and Community (just a lot of links with no obvious purpose) and Business and Industry (which rivals AUT and Auckland). UC’s business page links to a recruitment section that refers to NZUniCareerHub.
7. Lincoln University - Lincoln is on FB (1,780 fans) and gets reasonable interaction. It has Twitter (310 followers), Flickr (not used recently) and YouTube. I like that you can easily share website pages on FB, Twitter or Digg and they keep a homepage stream of what has been shared on FB. The employers section is brief but also mentions NZUniCareerHub. Their Outreach section is good. The Research section is basic but does the job.
8. University of Otago - They have a FB page (1,776 fans) but with only a few posts. Twitter has 873 followers and they’re also on iTunesU. They have specialist sections for Maori (quite detailed) and Alumni and Friends (really just alumni). Their Research and Enterprise section is OK, covering all the bases, but is not as approachable as that for other universities – their subsites Centre for Innovation and Otago Innovation have more details. On the other hand, the business school website has very good employer info.

I’ll give Lincoln the top prize for social media amongst universities because they’re committed to it and use a range of approaches, but they don’t come close to the work of some ITPs. Universities may be doing good social media work on their student portals, but I can’t tell that. In terms of x-factor, I’ll give it to Massey, for their VC v-log, with Canterbury getting an honourable mention. No-one really did links with the community that well, but research links were generally strong (although at universities it is a service area rivalling teaching, so it should be good). I’d put Auckland first on their research pages, followed by Canterbury. Several sites did employer links well, with Auckland having the most depth, while AUT, Canterbury and Lincoln were good too. Overall, I’ll give Auckland the nod.

I want to emphasise that this review is not comprehensive by any means. I am sure that all university websites have a graduate recruitment section and that many faculties and schools have great stakeholder links pages, but I was focusing on easy navigation from the homepage. People can, and do, Google but I have been focusing on how an organisation chooses to present itself.