Importance and Usability of University Websites

An organization's website is a gateway to its information, products, and services. As such, it should be a reflection of the needs of the clients that it serves. Unfortunately, website design and development is often driven by technology or organizational structure or business objectives, rather than user needs. Since higher educational institutions have started to use their websites as a means of recruiting students, an effective website design emerged as a critical factor in attracting students. The usability factor is an extremely important aspect in an individual website as it ensures the survival of each institution in digital environment. In addition to the importance of website usability, the COVID-19 virus significantly increased the importance of websites, especially university websites. Website users and designers accept usability as major criteria in developing websites. If any institution website has poor usability, it is difficult to use, and visitors may turn to other institutions' websites.

Satisfaction of visually disabled users with California educational websites

BACKGROUND: College and university websites in the United States are legally required to meet accessibility standards to promote equal opportunity in education for blind and visually disabled students. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are the recognized standard for website accessibility. OBJECTIVE: Determine how satisfied blind and visually disabled college and university students are with college and university websites in California, and whether compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines is a good predictor of that satisfaction. METHODS: A random sample of websites from California colleges and universities was evaluated for accessibility compliance. A stratified sample of six websites was taken from the initial sample. Thirty blind or visually disabled students performed a prescribed series of tasks on each of the six websites, then answered a Likert-format survey regarding their satisfaction with each website. RESULTS: Sixty-three percent of websites did not meet the first priority accessibility criteria. Participant responses showed a majority were satisfied with websites, both compliant and non-compliant, and a strong correlation between satisfaction and accessibility compliance. CONCLUSIONS: Despite legal requirements, a majority or large minority of college and university websites in California do not meet accessibility guidelines, indicating a significant opportunity to improve the accessibility of those websites.

Intelligent Conversational Agent for Enhancement of Online Communication in Universities: An Overview of Kenyatta University

University websites and online portals are the primary means through which potential students and other stakeholders find important information about an institution. University websites are essential to these organizations’ marketing and communication efforts. In this paper, focus has been put on the need to complement these websites with the use of an AI Chatbot (UniBot) in order to serve more efficiently. This study aims at performing an extensive literature survey on intelligent conversational agents and the feasibility of applying them in enhancing online communication in universities. The study utilizes an iterative – incremental methodology to aid in design and development of UniBot, using AIML (Artificial Intelligent Markup Language) Pattern matching algorithm on the Pandorabot (AIAAS) platform, to generate high quality training data, with which, the agents Natural Language Understanding (NLU) model is trained. The study also provides for training and testing the agent using data which is acquired from Online Communication, University Website department at Kenyatta University.

Usability analysis taking into consideration the aspects of accessibility of selected university websites

The goal of this paper was to evaluate selected web services of universities in terms of user experience, with particular emphasis on usability and accessibility. The research was conducted using eye-tracking and questionnaire methods. Ten people participated in this study. The objects of the study were three university websites: the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), the Cracow University of Technology (PK) and the West Pomeranian University of Technology (ZUT). The eye-tracking data were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analyses, while the data from questionnaires were subjected to quantitative analysis. The results of individual analyses are presented in the form of heat maps, scan paths, charts and tables.

The Englishization of Polish higher education

In Poland, Englishization is subsumed under the concept of internationalization, which is considered a nationwide tendency of the development of the higher education sector. It is highly recommended to use English as a lingua franca of research and scientific communication, and it is common to implement programmes using English as a medium of instruction (EMI). Therefore, one of the key aspects discussed in this paper concerns the equalization of the status of Polish and English as languages of instruction. Other ‘tangible’ exponents of this English-Polish ‘alliance’ are to be seen in the area of job competition procedures, which have to be stated in both Polish and English. Emphasis is also placed on the development of English versions of university websites.

Proposals for follow-up of graduates in the institutional development plans of federal universities

Universities fulfill the mission of carrying out teaching, research and extension based on a recognition of education as an instrument of social transformation. In this sense, public institutions are being increasingly charged for the efficiency and effectiveness of their actions. From this context, evaluation mechanisms emerge to measure effectiveness and assign concepts to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). From the recognition of the instruments that recommend the institutional evaluation in Brazil, the mention of the planning actions, the Institutional Development Plan (PDI) becomes strategic, and in this it is observed as an indicator to be inserted, the accompaniment of graduates of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The objective of the research is to identify the actions and goals foreseen in the IDPs of Brazilian federal universities in the Southeast region to follow up their graduates. The development of this work was through the qualitative approach with documentary research, by searching the university websites for the available institutional information. The results point to two distinct contexts, in which most of the researched institutions inserted in their macro-document the theme, one group aims to implement the policy and another group intends to advance to other follow-up stages, since it is a policy already institutionalized.