Stakeholder involvement in the development and maintenance of web sites for children

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this article is to investigate how public and state libraries are responding to research recommendations that the usability of a web site for children is improved by involving a wide range of stakeholders and particularly the end-users, in its creation. Design/methodology/approach -The study employs a self-administered, structured e-mail questionnaire.Findings -The development of children's web pages is usually the responsibility of teams of internal stakeholders, with the librarians responsible overall for the library web site being involved most, followed by children's librarians. Other library staff, information technology staff from the parent organisation and external experts made smaller contributions. The target group of children were less involved and took informal, indirect roles, rather than the direct, formal roles recommended by research.Research limitations/implications -The sample size is small and includes only children's web pages in Australia and New Zealand. Originality/value -The paper presents a valuable analysis of stakeholder involvement in the development and maintenance of web sites for children among state and public libraries in Australia and New Zealand.

Understanding Internet Searching Performance in a Heterogeneous Portal for K-12 Students: Search Success, Search Time, Strategy, and Effort

“…Christopher Coomes and Chern Liew (2007) looked at the composition of design teams and whether children were included as "stakeholders" in development, and found New Zealand libraries did not involve children to any great extent in the formal aspects of design. Similar to the present study, children were involved for the purposes of evaluating a finished product.…”

Use of web technology in providing information services by south Indian technological universities as displayed on library websites

“…Another study involving of maintaining web pages for children Coomes and Liew (2007) provided a snapshot of:…”