The Construction and Validation of an Evaluative Instrument for Academic Library World Wide Web Sites

Many academic libraries today have created World Wide Web sites as a way for students, faculty, and others to utilize information resources such as online catalogs, bibliographic and full-text databases, and other Internet sites. However, no reliable and validated method exists for evaluating these library Web sites. This dissertation created an instrument that can evaluate academic library Web sites based on the mission of the academy, the role of libraries, hypermedia theory, and extant principles of Web page design. This instrument was constructed in the form of a single score inventory or checklist. The author demonstrated evidence of usability, validity, and reliability for the instrument. Evidence of usability was presented through the results of a pilot study. Evidence of content validity was presented through a literature review, which provided the items on the instrument with a scholarly basis in the literature. Further evidence of content validity was presented through a critique of the item pool by a panel of experts. Evidence of reliability was presented through a separate field test, which demonstrated correlation between the raters of the instrument (interrater reliability)