Website Design of Indian Central Universities: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

World has shrunk into logically small e-village where everyone can communicate with every other person with great ease via both audio and visual media. The existence of being a global village has only been possible with interconnected communication links connecting users from geographically distant areas. The most predominant media for achieving this is with the help of well developed website. Educational institutions play vital role in reshaping any nation by imbibing quality attributes in culture, civilization and modernization. The information available on websites of educational institutions has become very important for prospective students and at present most of the universities are completing the process of admissions online with websites as mediators. Therefore, the need of the hour is to have updated and informative websites with ease of access. A key feature of the ongoing growth of Worldwide Web over the past decade has seen proliferation of web portals and mobile applications that focus on supporting education. The main aim of this research work is to study websites of central universities established post 2004 to explore their quality parameters and to get an insight into the challenges faced by prospective users. The research work recommends a common design framework for all central universities in order to help prospective users with understanding and usage of central universities websites.