Motivation and Disciplinary Distribution of Web Links Between African and World Universities: An Exploratory Study

Data for the exploratory study on web link analysis were extracted using the AltaVista search engine. A sample of 2913 links was selected using proportional-to-size sampling technique while individual link was selected using systematic sampling. The data were analyzed using the frequency and percentage distributions. The result of the analyses showed that while a considerable proportion of outlinks from the African universities was created for scholarly activities, a large percentage of links received by them was for administrative purposes. The disciplinary distribution of the links showed that Sciences was more prominent than all other disciplines. Links related to Agriculture, Education and Engineering were observed to be poorly represented. The study recommends that web relationship between universities should be for serious academic activities and not just for administrative purposes. Highly rated universities in the world should show considerable interest in linking with African universities for serious scholarly activities and this should cut across all disciplines.