Because of the varied and complex nature of web technology and type of Web sites the evaluation schould take a mixed-methods approach. Involvement of the Internet community in the Web sites selection and evaluation by selected jury evaluators.

The proposed Web site evaluation criterias, once they are defined schould available on the local project Web site to evaluators for review, comments and acceptance.

They may be grouped into relevant and easily understood and measured categories such as Contents and Credibility, Design and Navigation, Interactivity and Multimedia techniques.

The Web sites can be measured from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) as follows:

1 - Poor (Barely make the competition selection cut.)

2 - Fair (Standard, Ordinary site lacking originality.)

3 - Good (Broad appeal, Useful site but not necessarily compelling and with area for improvement)

4 - Very Good (Matches all important criteria of evaluation but doesn't yet represent a reference for the Internet Community.)

5 - Excellent (Not only very good but important and influential. Sites that bring a significant contribution to the Internet Community from the content as well as the design's point of view. A "must" when looking for information.)

An excellent site is informative, useful, compelling, credible, pleasant, easy to use and educative.

EVALUATION PROCESS AND WORKING PROCEDURE

The evaluation process implemented can follow this following process:

Sites Pre-selection

Depending on the number of web sites proposed for each of the five categories (for the institution category) and general for the second. From the list of proposed sites, the jury schould pre-select a restrain number.

Evaluation

Once the pre-selection process is completed, the short list can be submitted on the project's Web site to the evaluators, providing links to each selected site so the evaluators can browse through them before making a preliminary evaluation.

Web-based interactive evaluation form may be made available for use by the evaluators wherever they are located using a standard Internet connection.

In each category, the votes for each site schould be aggregated and sites ranked.

EVALUATION SURVEY

We consider here an evaluation survey (used by the African evaluators for the TOP 50) that may be useful to evaluate the Web sites, and may be you used by the local jurys. The questions and ratings used for measuring the quality of Web sites are listed hereafter

CONTENT AND CREDIBILITY

Content: The content rating indicates how informative, comprehensive, accurate and updated is the site. Does it cover its topic in a broad, deep and thorough manner? Is the information useful, accurate and up-to-date? Does it add to the existing Internet content?

Credibility: The credibility rating indicates how independent from bias and objective the site is. Does it content original material, facts that are verifiable? Are the authors and promoters identified, reliable and reachable by e-mail or mail?

DESIGN AND NAVIGATION

Design: The design rating assesses the site's layout and presentation. Does it lead visitors through the information elegantly? Are the pages beautiful, colorful and easy to use? Does it support text-based browser? Can the page be printed easily and loads in a reasonable amount of time?

Navigation: The navigation rating assesses how easy it is to access the information content on the site. Are any rules for use stated up front? Is it open to everyone on the Internet, or do parts require membership and/or fees? Is it a dead end, or are there relevant and useful links to take you further? Is there an appropriate balance between inward-pointing links and outward pointing so that the site is not a dead-end? Do the type styles and background make the page clear and readable?

INTERACTIVITY AND MULTIMEDIA

Interactivity: The interactivity rating assesses the interactivity between the visitor and the site owners, administrators. Does it allows communications by e-mail or provides mail, phone information to interact with the promoters? Are the private information requested from the visitors transferred safely, encrypted?

Multimedia: The multimedia rating assesses how effective is the use of multimedia resources (sounds, graphics, animations). Do multimedia elements help to understand the content better? Does it uses standard multimedia formats? Are animations, sounds, graphics appropriately incorporated and add to the site content?

OVERALL

The overall rating combines the evaluation of content, credibility, design, interactivity, navigation use of multimedia and qualifies the site as credible, pleasant, unique, easy to use, rich and educative.

The evaluators can also provide a narrative appreciation of the sites.

Contact Web Competition Coordinator