Assessing Quality Indicators for EURAXESS Portals

1
Quality indicators for assessing EURAXESS
portals
The deliverable of the TOPIII project - D5.2. Development of quality and performance indicators
Authors:
 Milan Zdravković, MEF
 Anna Mossolova, ETAg
Contributors:
 Xavier Ronald Eekhout Chicharro, FECYT
 Vitaliy Bondarenko, DLR
 Mihaela Elena Costache, European Commission
 Kitty Fehringer, European Commission
History and versioning plan
Release Date Comment
0.5 2.9.2017 First draft of the document is prepared, by using the results of desk
research and contributions by the PA group, collected during Belgrade
PA training. The document is sent out to the members of PA group for
comments and contributions.
1.0 15.9.2017 The received contributions are integrated with the document. This is
official release of the TOPIII deliverable.
1.05 9.11.2017 Comments and contributions from European Commission. Changes:
added indicators: Density of contextual links, Number of registered
users and organizations, Dedicated page on the organization website,
Effectiveness of value proposition on the homepage, Consistency of
language and tone
1.1 21.11.2017 Comments and contributions from PA community, received at the Portal
Administrators meeting in Brussels, Nov 2017 are integrated with the
document.
1.2 27.11.2017 Comments and contributions from PA community, received at the Portal
Administrators training (Quality Workshop) in Tallinn, Nov 2017 are
integrated with the document.

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Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................4
The objective.......................................................................................................................................4
How this document was developed?..................................................................................................4
How this document can be used?.......................................................................................................4
Quality framework..................................................................................................................................5
Quality indicators....................................................................................................................................7
Content popularity indicators.............................................................................................................7
Users’ acquisition............................................................................................................................7
Number of back-links to the national portal pages ........................................................................7
Effectiveness of back-links to the national portal pages ................................................................8
Dedicated page on the organization website (NEW)......................................................................8
Association of the national portal to a Facebook page ..................................................................9
Association of the portal to a Twitter account ...............................................................................9
Effectiveness of social networks’ integration...............................................................................10
Effectiveness of newsletters.........................................................................................................10
Search Engine Optimization..........................................................................................................11
Content presentation indicators.......................................................................................................11
Quality of landing pages ...............................................................................................................11
Use of responsive images .............................................................................................................12
Clarity of the content....................................................................................................................12
Explanation of the external sources .............................................................................................12
Use of news tool ...........................................................................................................................13
Use of events tool.........................................................................................................................13
Quality of presentation on smart phones.....................................................................................13
Originality of content....................................................................................................................14
Content quality indicators.................................................................................................................14
Users retention .............................................................................................................................14
Relevance of external sources ......................................................................................................14
Credibility of external sources ......................................................................................................15
Working links to external sources.................................................................................................15
Content relevance.........................................................................................................................15
Appropriate use of graphical content...........................................................................................15

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Use of original graphical content..................................................................................................16
Content completeness..................................................................................................................16
Frequency of news updates..........................................................................................................16
Clear, informative and teasing titles.............................................................................................17
Local version of the national portal..............................................................................................17
Accuracy of information................................................................................................................17
Effectiveness of value proposition on the homepage (NEW).......................................................17
Consistency of language and tone (NEW).....................................................................................18
Legal quality indicators .....................................................................................................................18
Legal use of third party graphical content....................................................................................18
Disclaimer for information & assistance section content.............................................................18
Cookie disclaimer..........................................................................................................................19
Navigation quality indicators ............................................................................................................19
Ease of navigation within the specific topic..................................................................................19
Minimal navigation “depth” .........................................................................................................20
Density of contextual links (NEW) ................................................................................................20
Performance indicators.....................................................................................................................20
Short page load time.....................................................................................................................20
User interaction indicators ...............................................................................................................21
Use of contact forms/integration of helpdesk..............................................................................21
Number of registered users and organization (NEW)...................................................................21
Appendix A: National sites checklists....................................................................................................22
Menu.................................................................................................................................................22
Content .............................................................................................................................................22
Information topics ............................................................................................................................23
Appendix B: Using focus groups in assessing and improving the quality of the national portals ........24

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Introduction
The objective
The objective of this document is to provide a structural framework for further improvements of the
EURAXESS portals, mostly national EURAXESS portals. The framework is expected to define the most
effective qualities of the portals and the means to assess those, including some example activities
for improvement.
How this document was developed?
The launch of EURAXESS national portals took place in 2016-2017. The go-live was conditioned to
the fulfilment of checklist of criteria, developed by Intrasoft (Appendix 1 of this document). The
checklist criteria were mostly technical and they were used to assess eligibility of the concerned
portal for going live, but not its effectiveness or quality. Therefore, the initiative was born to define
more exhaustive list of indicators pursuing with longer-term objectives.
The activity of developing this framework was led by MEF (funded by TOPIII project, in task T5.3).
The initial list of indicators was defined collaboratively, at the quality workshop of the EURAXESS
Portal Administrators (PA) meeting in Belgrade, June 2017, run by ETAG. Based on that, desk
research and internal discussion in MEF led to the first version of this document, published in
September 2017. Quality indicators were presented at the PA meeting in Brussels, November 2017
and training that took place in Tallinn, a week after. Both venues were used to collect feedback from
the PA community. Based on the contributions, a final version was developed and published in
December 2017.
How this document can be used?
The main purpose of the document is to serve as a reference for improvement of the national
EURAXESS portals. The improvement initiative may be ad-hoc or structured (by defining the
structured set of activities, corresponding to means to evaluate selected indicators and actions
aiming at improving those).
First of all, while each of the portals has its own priorities and custom objectives, the common aim is
to provide complete, accurate and easily accessible information on specific researchers’ mobility-
related and career development issues (as defined in the Declaration of Commitment of EURAXESS
members). Each of the countries may have different sub-priorities within this area, according to the
demand of the researchers and organizations1
using the services of the respective national
EURAXESS network; these sub-priorities may be identified by the analysis of the data on the
provided services. Therefore, while each of the indicators is associated with the proposed scope, PAs
are invited to a free interpretation and especially prioritization, based on their internal objectives.
For this reason, the proposed priorities can only be considered as tentative.
Second, quality indicators can be used in future third-party or internal assessments of the national
portals. For example, they can be used as a starting point for survey design, as tools for structured
communication with focus groups, etc.
1
Portal content can be highly useful from the “institutional perspective” (e.g., info on how to get the logo, or
posting job offers)

5
Third, the document is a potentially valuable resource for the discussion on the future improvement
of the portal platform, managed by the European Commission. The further improvement may
include development of a common tool for the assessment, implementation and maintenance of the
changes related to quality improvement of the platform. Some of the examples are a spell checker,
common image galleries, update of the editor with meta-information on external links, more
effective social media gadgets, etc.
Fourth, quality indicators can be used in future network call-funded portal activities, as a list of
priorities or good practices for further improvement. Some quality indicators may be selected as
mandatory for improvement.
Quality framework
The framework defines information needed to describe the individual EURAXESS portals’ quality
indicators. The description is not considered exhaustive or complete; the appropriate level of detail
should be chosen based on the following considerations:
- value which may arise from the assessment and subsequent improvement,
- restrictions mostly related to portal management organizations’ staff number and expertise,
- very specific target group of the portal which is not possible to uniquely identify by the
available demographics and/or interests data (for example, by using Google Analytics)
Due to the abovementioned considerations, the framework does not define reference values which
can be used to compare/assess the national portals; the framework is defined the way that it can be
used mostly for assessing improvements, not the current state of plays.
Each indicator is classified in one or more groups/categories. After the initial list of indicators is
defined, categories were chosen for the purpose of a better data organization and tracking
improvement in the different areas of the website quality. Following categories have been identified
(one indicator can belong to more than one category):
- Content popularity
- Content presentation (including responsiveness)
- Content quality (including quality of the graphical content and external content sources)
- Legal (Liability/Responsibility)
- Navigation
- Performance
- User interaction
Each indicator receives a priority. The rate of priority reflects the value of impact of the
improvement which a specific indicator has on the overall goals of the EURAXESS portals. Scale of
priority:
- Low
- Medium
- High
Scope of indicator assessment defines the range of assessment. Possible values are:
- website,
- all pages and
- custom range of individual pages.

6
The rate of difficulty in three aspects is assigned to each of indicators (in scale of: easy, medium, and
difficult). The aspects are: difficulty to assess/evaluate in a given scope, difficulty to improve and
difficulty to maintain and facilitate continuous improvement. Therefore, following structure applies:
- Difficulty to assess/evaluate
o Easy
o Medium
o Difficult
- Difficulty to implement
o Easy
o Medium
o Difficult
- Difficulty to maintain and facilitate continuous improvement
o Easy
o Medium
o Difficult
Finally, for each of the indicators, the framework proposes means to evaluate each of them and
proposes actions for improvement.

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Quality indicators
Content popularity indicators
Users’ acquisition
CATEGORIES Content popularity SCOPE Website
DESCRIPTION PRIORITY High
Number of new users visiting your website in a time
period.
DIFFICULTY TO ASSESS Easy
DIFFICULTY TO IMPLEMENT Difficult
DIFFICULTY TO MAINTAIN Difficult
MEANS TO EVALUATE MEANS TO IMPROVE
Number of new users on website statistics tool
2
.
Tools that have been used by the national portal are
Google Analytics and Piwik.
Implement some of the online advertising strategies:
Google AdWords, Facebook ads. Increase number of
back-links, especially on highly visited platforms.
Number of back-links to the national portal pages
CATEGORIES Content popularity SCOPE All pages
DESCRIPTION PRIORITY Medium
Back links are links put on the third-party website
which lead to any of the pages published on the
national portal. Having many back links means more
traffic.
https://smallseotools.com/backlink-checker/. This
tool checks only for first 100 backlinks, another more
functional should be found.
Publish links to a national portal on the websites of
the member organizations
3
, affiliated partners,
associations, etc. Where else you could publish links
(ideas needed)?
2
It is very difficult to establish relevance of the most common set of GA metrics alone (page views, pages per
session, average session duration, bounce rate) to the quality or performance of national portals. There are
some guidelines (for example, see: https://placester.com/real-estate-marketing-academy/real-estate-google-
analytics-metrics-explained/), but these are quite generic and cannot be considered as useful for very specific
target groups
3
See example of European Office of the Complutense University in Madrid:
http://oficinaeuropea.ucm.es/euraxess-local-contact-point

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Effectiveness of back-links to the national portal pages
CATEGORIES Content popularity SCOPE All pages
The most effective back links are those published on
highly visited third-party websites.
Google Analytics -> Acquisition -> Referral
The potential effectiveness of the external websites
can be evaluated by using web popularity evaluation
tools, for example, http://webscore.online-domain-
tools.com/.
Other tools for back-links effectiveness analysis: Open
Site Explorer, Web Me Up.
Make the best effort to publish links to national portal
pages on highly visible websites (for example, news
and media, ministries, funding agencies
4
, etc.).
Write feature articles/blogs in highly visited websites.
Websites which publish funding information
(especially if related to H2020) or
present/explain/advertise MSCA are very relevant
and potentially useful for effective back linking.
Check the Google Analytics or PiWIK stats to discover
the most popular information&assistance topics on
the country level. Find the websites that publish
content in these topics and make the best effort to
publish back links there.
Advertise research associations on national EURAXESS
portal and exchange links with their web sites.
Dedicated page on the organization website (NEW)
The organizations with established EURAXESS Service
Centre should publish a dedicated page about the
centre, linking to the national portal
DIFFICULTY TO IMPLEMENT Medium
DIFFICULTY TO MAINTAIN Easy
Checking if such page exists and is easily accessible Implement the dedicated page on the organization
website
4
For example: https://www.fecyt.es/en/tematica/euraxess

9
Association of the national portal to a Facebook page
Facebook is the most cost-effective way to promote
the portal. Each national portal should be associated
to regularly updated Facebook page.
There exists a Facebook page
5
, associated to a
national portal
Create a national network's Facebook page. Page
should be regularly publishing posts and links to
pages on the national portal.
You can find a lots of material on Facebook
advertizing in Extranet library.
https://www.euraxess.rs/extranet/library?keywords=
facebook
Association of the portal to a Twitter account
6
Twitter is the cost-effective way to promote the
portal. Each national portal should be associated to
regularly updated Twitter account.
There exists a Twitter account, associated to a
national portal
Create a national network's Twitter account. Account
should be regularly publishing tweets with links to
pages on the national portal.
5
Some organizations have very strict rules about the use of social networks. For example, in FECYT,
Communication Department runs social media accounts). Thus, if for example you cannot have a national
EURAXESS account, at least make sure to share the Facebook posts and/or promote tweets using the
appropriate hashtags.
6
In general, the priority should be high as Twitter is the effective way for bringing the visitors to national
EURAXESS portal. However, in some countries, use of Twitter is very low (for example, Hungary). Thus,
prioritization is country sensistive.

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Effectiveness of social networks’ integration
CATEGORIES Content popularity, User
interaction
SCOPE Website
Encourage sharing of your content with social media
buttons on articles and pages of your website. How
many times a specific page was
shared/commented/used on Facebook/Twitter?
Google Analytics can provide data on the number of
users visiting the website by arriving from the link
published on the social media.
DIFFICULTY TO MAINTAIN Medium
Google Analytics -> Acquisition -> Social
Number of comments and shares on Facebook can be
seen by using this link:
https://graph.facebook.com/?id=<page url>
Increase frequency of posting links to national portal
pages on national network Facebook pages and
Twitter accounts.
Implement Facebook Advertizing campaigns (review
material from the course on Facebook advertizing in
Belgrade and Tallin, 2017.
Effectiveness of newsletters
Typically, newsletter tools have their own system for
evaluating the performance. In case that simple email
sending is used, effectiveness can be measured by
considering Google Analytics data. There is a wide
consensus that newsletters are not effective tool
anymore. However, there is a strong opinion that
news about EURAXESS, linking to national portal
pages should be published in larger scale,
organizational newsletters.
DIFFICULTY TO ASSESS Medium
Google Analytics -> Acquisition -> Direct data. Look
for webmail platforms, email clients.
Avoid publishing links to third-party websites in
newsletters.
Instead, create pages on the national portal with the
information you want to advertise through
newsletters.

11
Search Engine Optimization
CATEGORIES Content popularity,
performance
SCOPE Website
How well is your website optimized for/visible on
search engines? Different technical criteria are used
and most of them are evaluated automatically by
using the external tools, such as the ones mentioned
to the right.
DIFFICULTY TO ASSESS Difficult
Google Analytics -> Acquisition -> Organic search
Free SEO auditing tools:
- https://varvy.com/
- https://www.found.co.uk/seo-tool/ (very useful
keyword analysis)
- https://website.grader.com (not informative
enough, but very useful for comparative analysis)
Implement SEO training: clarify the meaning and
relevance of different micro-indicators terminology.
Implement SEO optimization initiative. Address at
least typical issues found that can be corrected by
portal administrators: page speed, no ALT text for
images, no sitemaps.
Use of specialized editors that assist in writing
readable web page content, by also checking SEO
compliance (for example, Hemingway editor).
Content presentation indicators
Quality of landing pages7
CATEGORIES Content presentation SCOPE Custom (landing
pages of information
topics)
Use of components increases the readability of the
content. IA manual gives example of meaningful use
of components for the specific content. Landing pages
should not be too long. One page should present
content of the same priority or abstraction level in a
particular topic.
All content within the specific topic is explained on
the landing pages and easily accessible. Rate of
components’ use on landing pages. Meaningful
choice of components from the specific content.
Edit landing pages to increase use of components.
Implement landing page - subpages structure.
7
Living, working, leaving pages + topic main pages (for example, accommodation, banking, working conditions,
etc.)

12
Use of responsive images
CATEGORIES Content presentation SCOPE All pages
Responsive images are automatically scaled (by the
browser) to the available space for their display.
Using responsive images is crucial for a proper display
on the devices other than desktop and laptop
computers.
DIFFICULTY TO IMPLEMENT Easy
All images are scaling properly on the different
devices. The best effort will be made to find a tool
which automatically assess the responsiveness of the
images in particular website.
Mark all images as responsive.
Clarity of the content
The presented content clearly and concisely presents
the useful information. The evaluation should involve
working with focus groups or similar method.
Implementation and maintenance involves training in
writing for web.
Focus groups, individual testing, proof-reading by
people from outside of EURAXESS community.
External tools, implementing different readability
tests, for example Flesch-Kinkaid Grade Level,
Gunning Gog index, and others.
Examples of tools: readable.io
Rewrite content. Use of specialized editors that assist
in writing readable web page content, by also
checking SEO compliance.
Explanation of the external sources
CATEGORIES Content presentation SCOPE Custom (all pages in
information topics)
Each of the external links should be highlighted.
External links should open in a new window.
Desirably, there should be an explanation about
what’s behind the external link.
Identify and check pages with external links. Broken
link checker can be used to find external links.
Highlight external links (see editor's manual). Rewrite
content to either explain the content behind the link
or if the content is important, create a component
exclusively explaining the content.

13
Use of news tool
CATEGORIES Content presentation SCOPE Website
DESCRIPTION PRIORITY Low
News tool is used for presenting the news articles. DIFFICULTY TO ASSESS Easy
News block published/link to news published Publish a news block on the homepage of the national
portal. See editor's manual for details.
Use of events tool
CATEGORIES Content presentation,
User interaction, Legal
SCOPE Website
Events tool is used for presenting the content about
the events and enabling interaction with the
participants.
Events block published/link to events published.
Published events allow registration of participants.
Registration process complies to the relevant privacy
laws.
Implement a procedure for event organization by
using events tool for informing the potential
participants and for managing registrations.
Quality of presentation on smart phones
Getting to useful information by using a national
portal on a smart-phone should be as easy and
straightforward as it is the case by using desktop or
laptop computer. This indicator is as important as the
rate of users using the smart phones on your website.
The rate of mobile users can be established by
considering data from Google Analytics -> Audience ->
Overview -> Operating system (and Screen
resolution). Testing may involve use of focus groups,
but there are also very good tools for that:
https://ready.mobi
Based on the testing results, edit the content.

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Originality of content
CATEGORIES Content presentation,
Legal
SCOPE All pages
Plagiarism and self-plagiarism practices must be
avoided. This counts both ways. National portals must
avoid copy&paste practices, but also take care that
their content is not replicated by the other websites.
There are some free tools for plagiarism checking, for
example https://www.quetext.com,
http://www.copyscape.com
Rewrite content, at minimum - change wording.
In case of found plagiarism by the third party, ask for
the credits and back-links.
Content quality indicators
Users retention
CATEGORIES Content quality SCOPE Website
Number of returning users visiting your website in a
time period.
DIFFICULTY TO MAINTAIN DIfficult
Number of returning users on Google Analytics Information sources on how to increase users
retention:
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-
marketing/improve-user-retention/
https://blog.helpshift.com/the-9-keys-to-taming-
promiscuous-app-users-and-increasing-user-
retention/
https://apptimize.com/blog/2016/06/increase-user-
retention-without-features/
Relevance of external sources
CATEGORIES Content quality SCOPE Custom (all pages in
information topics)
Provided content is highly relevant for the topic of the
page which displays the link to it
Check the relevance of external sources. Can be
determined in a focus group based assessment.
Develop recommendations on the credible and
relevant sources for the individual topics in
Information and assistance section.

15
Credibility of external sources
information topics)
Content is published by credible provider, for
example, government establishment, associations
and similar (project websites or news agencies should
be avoided). No recommendation of the credible
sources exists at the moment.
Check the credibility of the sources. Can be
determined in a focus group based assessment.
Develop recommendations on the credible and
relevant sources for the individual topics in
Information and assistance section.
Working links to external sources
information topics)
Broken links should be identified and fixed DIFFICULTY TO ASSESS Easy
https://validator.w3.org/checklink
8
. There are also
many other tools for broken links check, for example,
http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com
Fix broken links.
Content relevance
information topics)
How relevant is the content for the specific topic?
Can it solve the problem?
Individual testing, focus groups Based on the findings from testing, edit the content.
Appropriate use of graphical content
CATEGORIES Content quality SCOPE All pages
The graphical content is illustrative and provides
strong associations to the published information.
Individual testing, focus groups Edit graphical content, replace not relevant graphical
content.
8
Running link checkers may disable the website for the given IP number, from which the link checking was
initiated. Website could “see” this as DOS attack.

16
Use of original graphical content
The most relevant illustrations are original images.
Use of original images increases the credibility of
national portal as information source.
All graphical content is original Ideas on how to create original graphical content:
photo contest for researchers, ask for contributions
from the Service centers, obtain images/videos of
events and meetings organized by the network
members, etc.
Content completeness
information topics)
Can visitor solve a full range of problems relevant to a
particular topic? The list of all possible information
blocks is provided in the Information Architecture (IA)
manual
9
.
Focus groups, IA manual, User stories/personas
Persona creation tool:
http://www.makemypersona.com/
Identify missing content blocks (use user
stories/personas or focus groups for the analysis).
Develop content for the missing content blocks.
Frequency of news updates
News articles should be published regularly. DIFFICULTY TO ASSESS Medium
Relatively regular distribution (in time) of published
news. News article has been published recently
10
.
Implement a procedure for news publishing. Identify
sources of news information which can be tracked
regularly. Create a Google alert which will periodically
send email with news titles corresponding to the
specified keywords.
9
Manual is published in the Extranet: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/file/21204/download?token=bk43UDyU
10
There exists no recommendation about the desired frequency of the published news articles.

17
Clear, informative and teasing titles
Titles are important because Google search engine is
indexing them (headings), they will appear in the
search results.
Testing may involve use of focus groups or individual
testing
Rewrite titles to better inform the visitors about the
content.
Local version of the national portal
Local version of the national portal addresses local
researchers in country; it is focused at outgoing
mobility and career development opportunities. It is
targeting local researchers and employers.
There exists a local version of the national EURAXESS
portal
Implement the local version of the national portal.
Accuracy of information
CATEGORIES Content quality, Legal SCOPE Custom (all pages in
information topics)
Information provided on the national portals may
change in time. There has to be a procedure for
updating the information in order to maintain its
accuracy.
Individual internal testing. Implement yearly reviews of the content and editing
strategies.
Effectiveness of value proposition on the homepage (NEW)
CATEGORIES Content quality SCOPE Homepage
Each homepage should highlight the value
proposition for each of the specific target groups.
Individual testing, focus groups and similar. Rewrite homepage content.

18
Consistency of language and tone (NEW)
CATEGORIES Content quality SCOPE Homepage
Individual testing, focus groups and similar. Rewrite content.
Legal quality indicators
Legal use of third party graphical content
CATEGORIES Legal SCOPE All pages
Copyright rules for using third party graphical content
is respected
Free images published under Creative Common
licenses are used and properly attributed.
Guide for using CC content:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-
software/law-using-free-images-found-online-
3526354/
Disclaimer for information & assistance section content
CATEGORIES Legal SCOPE Custom (all pages in
information topics)
Disclaimer is necessary because of the possible legal
actions in case of misinformation.
Disclaimer is published at appropriate place on the
website and accessible from each of the pages within
the information & assistance sections
Write and publish disclaimer page.
Examples of disclaimers on EURAXESS national
portals:
https://www.euraxess.rs/serbia/disclaimer
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/poland/disclaimer
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/switzerland/disclaimer
https://www.euraxess.sk/en/disclaimer

19
Cookie disclaimer
CATEGORIES Legal SCOPE Website
Cookies contain private information of the users, but
their content is accessible by any website they are
visiting. Sites that use cookies have been required to
carry banners or pop-up notifications since 2012
under EU laws. Typically, users are asked to confirm
that they are aware about the cookie policy of the
website. Since that will not be possible to implement
on the website, at least a page with cookie policy
should be published.
Cookie disclaimer is published on the website. Every
user is asked to confirm awareness on use of cookies
on the website.
Write and publish Cookie disclaimer page. Ask users
to confirm.
Examples of cookie disclaimers on EURAXESS national
portals:
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/israel/israel-
home/cookie-disclaimer
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/czech-republic/cookie-
statement
https://www.euraxess.de/germany/cookie-statement
Other Legal indicators, classified in other groups:
- Originality of content
- Accuracy of information
Navigation quality indicators
Ease of navigation within the specific topic
CATEGORIES Navigation SCOPE Custom (subpages of
information topics)
Although the parent page is highlighted in the
breadcrumbs, every subpage should have a back
button, to clearly define the sensible navigation path.
All topics should follow landing page - subpages
design pattern.
There are back-buttons on subpages Create buttons with back links to landing pages at
each of the created sub-pages.

20
Minimal navigation “depth”
CATEGORIES Navigation SCOPE Custom (all pages in
information topics)
Number of clicks needed to get to the practical
information in some topic. It should be minimized. It
needs to be be considered that for some topics it may
be difficult to keep the standard navigation depth, for
example work permits or taxation.
It should not be possible to navigate further then
subpages. Max number of clicks to get to the
information from the landing page should be 1.
Rewrite and reorganize content to implement landing
page - subpages structure.
Density of contextual links (NEW)
CATEGORIES Navigation SCOPE Custom (all pages in
information topics)
In order to reduce the bounce rate, each page should
provide a number of links to the other pages of the
national portal (in text links).
Options to browse through the national portal from
the landing page
Performance indicators
Short page load time
CATEGORIES Performance SCOPE All pages
Page load time mostly depends on the page size and
number of its requests. Page load time depends of
template, to large extent. The only significant factor
that can be influenced by the administrators is file size
of images.
https://tools.pingdom.com.
There are also image analysis tools which can suggest
potential savings:
https://webspeedtest.cloudinary.com/
Optimize images.
Image optimization guide:
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/p
erformance/optimizing-content-efficiency/image-
optimization
Other Performance indicators, classified in other groups:
- Search Engine Optimization

21
User interaction indicators
Use of contact forms/integration of helpdesk
CATEGORIES User interaction SCOPE Website
The networks with high number of requests will
greatly benefit from the implementation of contact
forms, integrated with the helpdesk system. Helpdesk
system helps in automating the redirection of
requests to appropriate place where they are
handled. Helpdesk system can automatically generate
the statistics report.
Is there a contact form? Is it integrated with the
helpdesk?
Implementation of helpdesk system is relatively big
effort and it makes sense only in the networks with
very high number of requests for services and
information. Three ways to do it: develop it from the
scrath, develop a common EURAXESS helpdesk/CRM
system, implement existing one.
Examples of Open Source CRM systems:
https://suitecrm.com/
http://zurmo.org/
https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm
Number of registered users and organization (NEW)
CATEGORIES User interaction SCOPE Website
Local versions of the national portals should strongly
promote the benefits of registration for individual
researchers and organizations from the particular
country.
EC stats Highlight value propositions for registered users in
the local versions of the national portal
Other User interaction indicators, classified in other groups:
- Effectiveness of social networks’ integration

22
Appendix A: National sites checklists
Menu
Menu Type Validation
Top Level menu (e.g. Jobs & Funding,
About us, etc)
All menu items navigate to a landing page.
Menu Headings (e.g. Living in, Working
in, etc)
Links are pointing to a section or tab inside a landing page.
Menu Items (e.g. Accommodation,
Banking, etc)
Links navigate to an info topic, a basic page or a shared page from
EURAXESS Europe.
Search buttons with icons (e.g. Search
Jobs, Find Personal Assistance, etc)
Links are filtered by country.
All links to internal pages must be relative - this means do not specify the domain (server name) such as
euraxess.pt. The recommended way to handle links to internal content, is to use the ‘/node/xxx’ URL, for
example a link to the Accommodation page is written as:
Correct: /node/122507
Wrong: euraxess.pt/node/122507
Footer Validation
Top Level links (e.g. Jobs & Funding,
About us, etc)
All links navigate to a landing page.
Second level links 1. Search/Find links are filtered by country.
2. Links created by the national site editors, navigate to a page.
My EURAXESS Use the "My EURAXESS" footer item shortcode .
Social Media Links point to the national site's social media page.
Content
Validation
A basic page has been created for all top level menu items.
Stage images at landing pages are configured with the following properties:
- Dimensions: width: 1440px, height: 342px
- "Use this Image as Page Header?"
All Pages are linked either from a menu item or from a parent page.
Sub-pages indicate their parent page. An information topic must have only parent but can belong to multiple
topics.
Avoid "orphan" pages, pages not linked to a menu item or from a parent page

23
Information topics
Check that the following topics, if available, are created under the correct category as per the guidelines.
Information Topic
Access to the culture of the host country/language courses
Accommodation
Banking
Day care, schooling & family related issues
Departure conditions/formalities
Entry conditions/visas
Health insurance
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
Job opportunities
Medical care
Pension rights
Recognition of diplomas
Research funding opportunities
Taxation/salaries
Unemployment
Work permit

24
Appendix B: Using focus groups in assessing and improving the quality of the
national portals
Many of the quality indicators mentioned above can be assessed and improved by implementing the focus
groups’ exercises. This section is added only for the convenience of those who are interested to implement
those exercises and it compiles the list of indicators which will be taken into account.
- Clarity of the content
- Quality of presentation on smart phones
- Content relevance
- Credibility and relevance of external sources
- Appropriate use of graphical content
- Content completeness
- Clear, informative and teasing title
- Consistency of language and tone
- Effectiveness of value proposition on the homepage

Assessing Quality Indicators for EURAXESS Portals

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