A UNIVERSITY'S website has leapt up the rankings table for both performance and ease of use.

Buckinghamshire New University has been named as the ‘biggest climber’ in a league table ranking the best and worst performing websites at higher education institutions in the UK.

The University, in Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, rose a massive 247 places to 86th position in the quarterly Sitemorse ranking, which evaluates 339 institutions offering higher education qualifications and is produced from more than 238 million checks assessing all aspects of websites’ functionality.

Bob Cozens, Director of Marketing & Student Recruitment at Bucks New University, said of the University’s rise up the rankings: "This is excellent news and we are delighted to see that the changes and improvements we have made to the website have had such a dramatic effect.

"Integral to the brief for the recent redesign of the Bucks website was to achieve a clean design and ease for users to find what they were looking for. Key improvements include introducing a courses drop-down section to make it easier to browse the courses by subject area; the ability to run visual campaigns on the homepage; and an improved news and events section.

"Websites are an important element of the marketing mix in attracting prospective students and other key stakeholders to the University and I was keen that the new design should provide an attractive shop window to the University, clearly showing what we have to offer."

Warwickshire College topped the Sitemorse league table whilst Royal Conservatoire of Scotland brought up the rear of the rankings.

A full report was featured in the magazine, Times Higher Education.