University Twitter Engagement: Using Twitter Followers to Rank Universities

We examine and rank a set of 264 U.S. universities extracted from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I membership and global lists published in U.S. News, Times Higher Education, Academic Ranking of World Universities, and Money Magazine. Our University Twitter Engagement (UTE) rank is based on the friend and extended follower network of primary and affiliated secondary Twitter accounts referenced on a university's home page. In rank-to-rank comparisons we observed a significant, positive rank correlation (τ=0.6018) between UTE and an aggregate reputation ranking which indicates that UTE could be a viable proxy for ranking atypical institutions normally excluded from traditional lists. In addition, we significantly reduce the cost of data collection needed to rank each institution by using only web-based artifacts and a publicly accessible Twitter application programming interface (API).