Communicating knowledge-focus through websites of higher education institutions

Abstract

Although higher education institutions (HEIs) are expected to be the leaders in knowledge generation and dissemination, it is often not clear whether they are knowledge-aware, that is, have a knowledge focus. In this article, the communication with stakeholders through HEI websites is examined to determine to what extent these institutions communicate about their knowledge initiatives and projects. This is done through an investigative study involving all HEIs and their faculties in Slovakia. Using content analysis, the study examines whether the publicly available resources on HEIs’ websites contain knowledge-related keywords, indicating the existence of a knowledge-focus. The results reveal that the websites of some HEIs contain hundreds of these resources, whereas others have none. Statistical evidence confirms that the intensity of communication about knowledge terms increases with the age and size of the HEI and is also dependent on the type of HEI (public, private state, foreign). Other dependencies between the examined factors have also been revealed, for example, HEIs that rank higher in Webometrics indicators are more intensive in their knowledge communications.