Website analysis- www.lincoln.ac.uk

The website I have chosen is the Lincoln University Page, www.lincoln.ac.uk. The reason I have chosen this website is because it is something that I end up using and exploring many times a week.
When the page appears, it displays a picture of the university, with information and several Hyperlinks to other parts of the site and other websites themselves. Hypertext described in Lister as ‘made up from discrete units of material in which each one carries a number of pathways to other units’ (pg22) is one of the main functions of the website I would say. This is obvious from the first page as the Hyperlinks down the side are what dominates the display and are key to accessing the part of the site which you want. For example the staff and students section of Lincoln would be accessed by going on www.lincoln.ac.uk and clicking to hyperlink to this specific section. This section itself then holds further hyperlinks until you have found your desired destination. For me this would normally be the library, or blackboard.
Hypertext is criticised by theorists for being ‘Non Linear’ (Lister pg27) and unstructured. However i question to whether the Hyper linking on the Lincoln home page is actually ‘Non Linear’, as when I access the page I access it with the intention to follow the hyperlinks with structure to where I wish to be. I am actually accessing the website with purpose and a structure of following a set of Hyperlinks to reach the part of the site which I want. This is done by the Hyperlinks holding obvious names/topics such as ‘staff and students’, so if you were a staff or student you would click this section and not take a ‘non linear’ distracted approach.
In some sense this website is an ‘online community’. Rheingold holds that for an online community there needs to be ‘active participation’ and ‘two way’ communication (Lister page 174), which the Lincoln home page isn’t. However under Durkheim’s theory that ‘group identity is identified through shared values and norms’ and that it is these ‘shared values’ which ‘being to define community’ (page 174) then the site could be considered as a community because all the people which access it have Lincoln University in common and share the value to access it for information on the Uni or the Uni’s resources. Furthermore you need specific Lincoln Uni passwords to access parts of the site so it might be argued that this makes it a community as only people associated with Lincoln Uni can access certain parts.
You might question like Rheingold that a community needs communication and the Hyperlinks to the other sources do hold this. For example students from the same subjects ‘values’ access their topic on blackboard, enrol in community’s and participate in this. In addition the site provides a link to the SU website (http://www.lincolnsu.com) in which games and forums can be accessed in which everyone will share the community of Lincoln, as you need the Lincoln username and password to access some of the things. This leads onto something coined by Bruns as Produsage (Towards Produsage:Axel Bruns, pg2) whereby the website itself doesn’t hold any, however the link it provided to the SU site contains a lot (games, polls, forums).
The culture of the website is that everyone accessing it will be after the same thing; something to do with Lincoln University. Obviously maybe not for the same reason and intentions but it is a culture of the University Of Lincoln. I do not feel there are any privacy issues as the website is a very informative one, and like I have said passwords and usernames specific to the Uni are needed. I do trust the website, and think most people would as the information is posted by people at the Uni, and established environment considered in society to be trusted. However as always with data online some people will always question its authenticity, there is though contact details to ring the University and perhaps question something if wanted to.