Perceptions of usability and navigability contribute substantially to initial impressions of university and program websites. A survey was administered to graduate students in special education at four intervals between 2006 and 2014 to determine their perceptions of university and special education doctoral program websites. For this article,…

There is a pressing need for an evaluation rubric that examines all aspects of educational apps designed for instructional purposes. In past decades, many rubrics have been developed for evaluating educational computer-based programs; however, rubrics designed for evaluating the instructional implications of educational apps are scarce. When an…

Senior citizens are comparatively vulnerable in accessing learning opportunities offered on the Internet due to usability problems in current web design. In an effort to build a senior-friendly learning web as a part of the Life-long Learning Network in Shanghai, usability studies of two websites currently available to Shanghai senior citizens…

As a concept, the next-generation catalog (NGC) is not new to librarians, who have been wishing for better OPAC interfaces for their integrated library systems (ILSs). The NGC has been the focus of discussion for more than 5 years now, from the 2006 report of the implementation of Endeca at North Carolina State University, to Marshall Breeding's…

The new trend on the Web has totally changed today's information access environment. The traditional information overload problem has evolved into the qualitative level beyond the quantitative growth. The mode of producing and consuming information is changing and we need a new paradigm for accessing information. Personalized search is one of…

The authors describe how content-based multimedia search technologies can be used to help learners find new materials and learning pathways by identifying semantic relationships between educational resources in a social learning network. This helps users--both learners and educators--to explore and find material to support their learning aims.…

Interdisciplinary design presents challenges in design collaboration due to the difficulty in communicating and coordinating among disciplines. Many tools have been developed and used to support information sharing in design, and the use of Web technology is becoming increasingly important for the sharing of information within design teams. Wikis…

Institutions of higher education have invested heavily in learning management systems (LMS) for creating course websites. Yet, how to assess LMS effectiveness is not fully agreed upon. Based on institutional theory, this article considers student satisfaction as indicative of LMS success and proposes a lens of critical success factors (CSF) as a…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine the various features and components of web-based online public access catalogues (OPACs) of IIT libraries in India with the help of a specially designed evaluation checklist. Design/methodology/approach: The various features of the web-based OPACs in six IIT libraries (IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT…

An increasing number of instructors are seeking to provide students with online anatomy resources. Many researchers have attempted to identify associations between resource use and student learning but few studies discuss the importance of usability testing in resource design and modification. Usability testing provides information about ease of…

Discovery tools are the next phase of library search systems. Illinois State University's Milner Library implemented EBSCO Discovery Service in August 2010. The authors conducted usability studies on the system in the fall of 2010. The aims of the study were twofold: first, to determine how Milner users set about using the system in order to…

Searching for relevant information on the web is an important aspect of distance learning. This activity is a challenge for visually impaired distance learners. While sighted people have the ability to filter information in a fast and non sequential way, blind persons rely on tools that process the information in a sequential way. Learning is…

ICUE (Interactivity Centered Usability Evaluation) is an enhanced usability testing protocol created by the researcher. ICUE augments the facilitator's role for usability testing, and offers strategies in developing and presenting usability tasks during a testing session. ICUE was designed to address weaknesses found in the usability evaluation of…

This paper looks at criteria on how education service providers' websites could benefit their potential students from overseas. Effective design of education website is important as web users are typically fastidious and want information fast--this serves as the background of this study. The study focuses on three selected education institutions'…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an indexing and teaching focus mining system for lecture videos recorded in an unconstrained environment. Design/methodology/approach: By applying the proposed algorithms in this paper, the slide structure can be reconstructed by extracting slide images from the video. Instead of applying…