Evaluating the Quality of Websites of Research Institutes Affiliated to Iranian Universities of Medical Sciences

Websites of university research institutes play an important role in communicating and providing services to their users. The aim of this study was to determine the quality of websites of research institutes affiliated to Iranian universities of medical sciences.
This applied study was carried out using cross-sectional method in winter 2014. The dedicated websites of research institutes were evaluated using a pre-validated checklist. This checklist addressed four dimensions of websites quality: content, design, organization and user-friendliness. For sorting the quality of websites, a score of 1 to 5 was given to each criterion of these dimensions by experts. Excel software was used to analyze the data.
The studied websites conformed to standard quality criteria by means of 81% for content, 85% for design, 89% for organizing and 77% for user-friendliness. Overall, the obtained scores in four dimensions of websites quality ranged from 74% to 90% of the maximum score for each item.
In general, the websites of the research institutes affiliated to Iranian universities of medical sciences were in desirable conditions in terms of conforming to four dimensions of website quality. However, to increase the efficiency and productivity of these websites, research institutes should consider other neglected quality criteria in the design of their websites.