Universities of the Kyrgyz Republic on the Web: accessibility and usability

Today the Internet is the easiest way to find information about any kind of organization, and the first impression about an organization is almost always based on its Web site. This study investigated whether the Web sites of the universities in the Kyrgyz Republic comply with prevailing standards of accessibility and usability and whether these qualities depend on location and type of ownership of the universities. The analysis was conducted using online evaluation tools. Based on the data collected, the hypotheses were further tested using the SPSS statistical package. The results show a low usability rating for the vast majority of the universities’ Web sites. For 90.47 ?f the Web sites upload time exceeds 30 s; 52.38 ?f the Web sites have broken links; and 100 ?ave browser compatibility problems. The results of accessibility tests show low compliance with W3C-WCAG 1.0: error rates for Priority 1, 2, and 3 checkpoints of 83.33, 92.85, and 95.24 ?respectively. The results obtained and the results of an independent t test indicate that most of the issues of all Web sites tested are not of a technical nature, and occur mainly due to human factors related to Web application development. -

Keywords: Higher educationWeb usabilityWeb accessibilityKyrgyz Republic