The assessment of Iranian academic library websites regarding the quality of dissemination of electronic information

Abstract

The purposeof this research is to assessthequalityof Iranian academic library websites pertaining todissemination of electronic information, based on visibility, authenticity, navigation, accessibility, information dissemination, quality assessment and updateness, and consequentlyto rankthem according to their conformity to these standards.The studyisanapplied research, conductedusing scientometrics methodology. Research population consists of 80 central library websites of IranianMinistry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT)main universities. Data collection tool is a researcher-structuredchecklist through using descriptive statistics to analyze the findings. Reliability of research tool was calculated 0.8 using kappa coefficient, and itscontentvalidity wasconfirmedby five experts in the fieldof information and knowledge science, one computer science expert and one librarywebsite designer.In the domain ofdissemination of electronic information (DEI)the averageof standards of visibility (54.48 percent), authenticity (39.29 percent), navigation (68.95 percent), accessibility (46.73 percent), information dissemination (54.48 percent), quality assessment(45.16 percent) and updateness(37.5 percent) were calculated. Tehran, Ilam and Sahand TabrizwithShahed universitieswere ranked as the first, the second and the third respectively, while the lowestranks belongto Sirjan andTorbat Heydariehuniversities of technology and Graduate University of Advanced Technology.