A Survey of Acquaintance and Application of Web Information Quality Criteria: A Case Study of Post-Graduate Students in Shiraz University

Web is developing very fast. It is a resource to publish electronic information. There is no standard on the web so it is important that we identify information quality on the web. To this aim، this survey first identified fourteen web information quality criteria and then a questionnaire based on these criteria was used to investigate the amount of attention to and application of web information quality criteria among post-graduate students of Shiraz University while searching for information in the web. Data was analyzed using inferential statistics such as repeated measures. The results indicated that the amount of attention to the web information quality criteria differed for each of the criteria on the basis of the user''s information needs، knowledge and experiences، their aims of searching for information and the amount of their tolerance for biased information. In general، no significant differences were found on the amount of attention to information quality criteria among different disciplines، MA and PhD levels and the sex of graduates in Shiraz University.