Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) 2013
A study was conducted to assess the quality of websites of five selected public universities in
Tanzania. The main purpose of the study was to understand the quality of university websites from
users’ perspectives. This study employed a 22-item instrument measuring four dimensions of web
quality namely technical adequacy, information quality, service ability and web appearance. Data
were collected through email survey and they were analyzed using SPSS and Ms Excel. The study
findings show that, of the five university websites evaluated, the SUA website ranked the highest
followed by that of UDSM. The websites of SUZA, OUT and MU were ranked in the third to fifth
positions respectively. Service ability is a construct that was highly supported in the five websites
evaluated whereas web appearance is the construct that required improvements in all five
websites. It is recommended that improvements should be done in some of the quality dimensions
such as appearance in order to ensure that these websites deliver information to intended
audience. Regular updating of websites is also essential to make them effective and meet the
changing needs of users.