Web credibility and evaluation of academic websites - Empirical Study

Websites are most important for information dissemination in this technological era. One of the important factors for the success of any organization or institution is its websites. Academic websites provide information about universities, institutes and departments, resources and services, faculty members, students, alumni and others. A good and well designed academic website is not only an excellent media for publicizing the activities and services but also helps to bring it, to the notice of the users about all the significant information which they must know in using their products and services. The aim of the academic websites' study is to evaluate the level of accomplishment of required characteristics such as usability, functionality, reliability and efficiency comparing partial and global preferences. In this study, an attempt has been made to identify the credibility factors for academic websites with respect to user perspectives. Based on the credibility factors identified by the Library and Information Science professionals, the academic websites are assessed. The expectations of the academic websites were identified and opinions about credibility factors were evaluated.