CREDIBILITY OF STATE UNIVERSITY WEBSITES IN TAMIL NADU: A QUALITATIVE STUDY USING FOCUS GROUPS

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 users about all the significant information. There are 21 state universities in Tamil Nadu and these university websites were analysed in this study. Each university were assigned to 1 expert and likewise a total of 21 universities have been distributed among 5 experts and were asked to examine, identify the feature and evaluate based on the established guidelines and parameters which were developed in the form of check list method. Each expert has given five different groups of universities out of 21 and was asked to evaluate at different intervals. Thus each university was examined 5 times by one of the 5 experts. The Credibility of Websites were analysed based on Use of websites; Website inform about its progress; Learning to use the websites; Exploring new features by trial and error; Performing tasks is straightforward; Website loading and designed for all levels of users. Use of websites irrespective of domain of the university is simple and easy. Website inform about it progress is co-operative. Learning to use the websites is co-operative. Exploring new features by trial and error is simple and easy. Performing tasks is straightforward at all times. Designed always for all levels of users.