An Evaluation Model for Determining Quality in Academic Websites

Abstract

Academic websites are becoming popular for sharing information and for communication. Every passing day the number of institutions publishing their web sites is increasing. Every institution wants their web site to be of good quality. However institutions do not realize maximum user satisfaction due to issues of poor quality. Some quality metrics may affect indirectly on the popularity through their effect on the performance or the usability of websites. So it is necessary to evaluate a websites’ quality so that it can satisfy the users. Quality can only be improved through a well-established quality evaluation model yet the number of web quality models that can be used right away to evaluate quality in academic websites are limited. Therefore the degree of quality of service delivered and user satisfaction is a major concern for any learning institution. The goal of this study was to propose a reliable weight based model for measuring quality in academic websites. For this purpose, a broad study of the literature on prevailing quality evaluation models, essential website success factors and criteria was made to identify necessary quality factors and sub factors that are desirable to academic websites. A Survey involving Web masters and developers was carried out to find out methods they currently use in assessing quality in academic websites. Purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to acquire the study sample. Descriptive and inferential statistics were generated. The model developed in this study uses 7 high level quality characteristics branching into 26 sub characteristics with attached weights. The quality of an academic website was determined using a Quality index (QI). From the study it was found that QI≥0.70 translate to excellent quality while for QI≥ 0.40 and QI< 0.70 translate to Average Quality and QI˂0.40 would translate to Poor Quality. The proposed model developed was then validated using five operative academic websites. From the validation it was observed that the proposed model offered a better criterion in evaluating academic websites as compared to Tsigereda Model which was used as a base model in this study. A tool was then designed to ease the evaluation process. The proposed model the researcher came up with in this study will suit both developers, web masters, institution administrators and extends the same to the users of an academic website