Academic Affairs Online: A Survey Of Information Available On Websites In Higher Education

College Student Journal, Sept, 2000 by Doris A. Bitler, Walter P. Rankin, Joann M. Schrass

Recent studies have centered on the pedagogical implications of employing Internet technology (email, the WWW, chatrooms) in college-and-university level instruction. In comparison, little research has been published with regard to using Internet technology to aid in administrative, academic issues in higher education. Although colleges and universities are increasingly using Internet resources to appeal to a diverse and computer-literate student population, our survey of 65 Virginia institutions reveals that they have not employed those resources as effectively as possible. In this article, we focus descriptively on admissions, financial aid, and academic policy websites used by students, alumni, faculty, and staff and offer suggestions on how to make those sites more informative and navigable.

Introduction

The majority of studies regarding technology and education have focused on the pedagogical implications of employing Internet technology (email journals, Web-based distance learning, chatroom lectures and discussions, for example) in instruction and in innovative methods of computer assisted instruction (CAI). To date, relatively little research has been done with regard to Internet technology and administrative, academic issues at the college and university level. The recent accreditation of Jones International University (www.jonesinternational.edu), the first accredited "cyber-university" to operate completely online, foreshadows the virtual universities predicted by Barnard (1997) and the "mega-university" described by Daniel (1997) who predicts Internet distance-learning will allow such universities to serve over 100,000 students online. And while colleges and universities have not yet achieved this reach, now is the time to examine the types of academic and administrative information available via the Internet to an increasingly diverse group of users. This article focuses on the variety of websites used by students, alumni, faculty, and staff to disseminate and retrieve necessary information regarding the institution's admissions procedures, academic policies, and financial aid.

Internet Use

Although colleges and universities have gained a valuable resource through the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW), the Internet itself owes a great deal of its incredible proliferation over the past thirty years to colleges and universities as well. According to Zakon (1999), initial Internet developments were begun by the Department of Defense and required hosts at academic institutions including UCLA, the University of Utah, Harvard, and Stanford. In 1985, some of the first registered domains were linked to Carnegie-Mellon (cmu.edu), Purdue (purdue.edu), Rice (rice.edu) and UCLA (ucla.edu). With the arrival of Mosaic, the first commercially available web browser in 1993, the service traffic on the WWW proliferated at a growth rate of 341,634%, quickly allowing the WWW to become the most popular service available on the Internet. According to Media Metrix, education sites dominated the top 15 "trafficked" websites in 1996. Even with the increased number of commercial (.com), governmental (.gov) and organizational (.org) sites available today, education sites account for nearly 10% of the top 500 websites. Additionally, the MCI Great American Net Test (1998) revealed that 75% of US public schools have access to the WWW, that 70 million adult users are online in North America, and in the United States, 18% of users are between the traditional college ages 18 to 24. Galthbreath (1997) predicts as many as 150 million Internet users and 20,000,000 websites by 2000. Clearly, prospective and registered students, their parents, alumni, faculty, and staff are using institutional websites to gather information, "tour" a variety of campuses, and research academic and financial information.

The Study Group

Although we focused this study on institutions located in Virginia, the overall group represents a full range of characteristics at a variety of institutions, both large (James Madison, University -- 13,000 undergraduates) and small (Hampden-Sydney College -- under 1,000); major city (Richmond University), suburban (George Mason University) and rural (Longwood College); public (University of Virginia) and private (Washington and Lee). The Virginia State Council of Higher Education lists a total of 88 institutions of higher education in Virginia. This study includes the 65 institutions, including two-year community colleges, which met the following criteria:

* Serve an undergraduate student population of 500 or greater

* Provide on-campus programs

* Provide credit acceptable for transfer into a bachelor's program

* Be accredited

Of the 65 institutions meeting these initial criteria, two institutions did not have their own homepages; thus, the study was limited to 63 institutions as follow:

* 15 four-year public institutions

* 23 two-year community colleges

* 25 four-year private institutions

Of note, 62 of these institutions designed and maintain their websites "in-house," while only one site was designed professionally. The technological advantages of having a site designed and maintained professionally may ultimately be eclipsed by the practical benefits of having institutional faculty and staff maintain the site, as they will better understand not only the policies, procedures, and deadlines of that institution, but its general atmosphere and attitude as well.