Paul Nozicka, SJSU Webmaster, discusses on his blog one of my favorite topics: how we can measure the ROI of higher education websites.
When it comes to web sites for institutes of higher education, most of users in that niche of the industry are shooting into the dark. Although we have a good idea of what is needed, how can we be sure that we are on the right track? When you consider that digital divide that exits between university web site administrators and the Net Generation, this question becomes even more daunting. Of course we can look at trends in website development in general and infer where we should go, but how smart, in terms of a business model, is that approach?
Last month, Paul gave some very good pointers about the topic during his presentation at the Community of Academic Technology Staff (CATS) conference in Sacramento, CA: “Pass/Fail: Does Your Website Make the Grade?” (PDF file)
Thanks for posting this. We’ve been offering for over a year a Web Site Report Card for free as part of our iRecruit services. We grade a college’s website on ten components and give each a grade (A, B, C, etc.) as well as an overall grade. We offer comments for each. We’ve done dozens of these and they’ve been very successful for folks who were willing to let us do it.