Application of Webometrics Techniques for Measuring and Evaluating Visibility of University Library Websites in Sri Lanka

Abstract

A library website plays an enhanced role compared to its traditional physical library while providing a wide variety of library services to its users. Evaluation of library websites is a key to realize the extent of user acceptance of the website and to improve the overall quality of the website. Under such backdrop, this paper provides a framework for ranking university library websites in Sri Lanka based on two standard webometric methods. The proposed framework consists of quantitative web presence measuring attributes namely; size, visibility, rich files and scholars along with simple and comprehensible mathematical calculations. The library administrators can get awareness about whether their website has effectively represented itself on the internet with better performance from the ranking results. The findings of the study will guide to the librarians to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses accordingly with the performance of their library websites. In general, the effective presence of these library websites on the internet can be passed on as the top by having proper number of site pages in the website that impact their perceivability through web search tools and accordingly the quantity of received external links. Meanwhile, libraries having low rich files can publish more rich files on the web to improve their overall rank. The research approach, criteria and their relative impact provide useful information in monitoring the effectiveness of the current websites and provide strategic suggestions to develop enhanced websites.

Strategi TIK untuk Meningkatkan Peringkat Webometric Universitas Riau Menggunakan Metode GAP Analysis

“…Selanjutnya [13], melakukan analisis terhadap website perpustakaan yang berada di Sri Langka untuk mengevaluasi pengaruh aspek Visibility dan Transparency. Menurut [13], perpustakaan memiliki peranan yang vital dalam menentukan nilai size dan visibility dari rich files sebuah universitas. Penelitian tersebut yang membahas pengukuran pada aspek Visibility dan Transparency menekankan perlunya repositori yang bisa dilihat oleh publik.…”

“…Oleh karena itu, dalam pengembangan sebuah repositori harus memahami dan merencanakan sistem repositori dengan baik agar dapat memberikan pengaruh terhadap peningkatan visibilitas dari konten sebuah universitas. Senada dengan [13], [14] menyimpulkan bahwa repositori institusi juga memiliki peranan penting pada aspek Visibility. Selain repositori, [15] juga menunjukkan bahwa ada korelasi antara usabililty dengan tingkat visibility Webometric.…”

Determinants of ResearchGate (RG) Score for the Top100 of Latin American Universities at Webometrics

“…From another approach, [11], also discussed the importance of webmetrics techniques for measuring the visibility, specifically in the case of university libraries in Sri Lanka. Similarly, [12] uses two quantitative techniques in Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) which are the Entropy method and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), applied to the Webometrics ranking for universities in the world.…”