Investigation and Ranking of Shi a Farsi Websites Based on the Checklist Designed by the Criteria of Silberg, SMRT, and Action For Health

This research tries to study and rank the Shi’a Farsi websites based upon the researcher-made checklist designed by the criteria of Silberg, SMRT, and Action For Health, in order to introduce the best websites in this regard. The research is evaluative, i.e. the information of 75 Farsi websites related to “Shi’a” was extracted by searching the internet and this information was subsequently evaluated through its comparison with the designed checklist. As this study showed, total mean value of the agreement of these websites with the checklist is 57.17%; among the features, access to materials got the highest rank (100% agreement) whereas being up-to-date was assigned the lowest rank (23.68% agreement with the checklist). Among the websites under study, “Tebyan” was the best one (score = 35) while he websites “Ghadir” and “Jolgeh” were the weakest ones (score = 11). In total, mean score of the 76 websites under study was calculated to be 22.18 (maximum possible score was 47) with standard deviation of 5.32, which reveals the weak performance of the websites under study.Originality/Value: As the evaluation of religious websites in Iran has not been made so far, the present study can be considered as a starting point which makes the designers of these websites acquainted with the standards in this scope and assists them in finding the existing strengths and weaknesses in these websites. Furthermore, through showing the distance between the existing status and the desirable status, this research can help in improving the quality of presenting religious information as well as satisfying the users.