We present the results of the second edition of the study on the functionality of websites of selected universities offering education in the field of logistics. Just as in previous issues of “Logistyka”, this year we are repeating last year’s research. The first study of logistics university websites was conducted last year, and its results were published in issue 4/2006 of the magazine. The form of the study remained unchanged to allow for comparison with last year’s results and to assess whether the universities have introduced any changes to their websites, removing the errors identified last year.
We re-examined the same websites of twenty universities, faculties, institutes, or departments related to logistics. Traditionally, the study consists of four parts. The first part presents the possibilities for contacting the university available to students and other interested persons visiting the university’s website. In this part, practically no changes were noted. All universities provide a contact phone number. Unfortunately, in most cases, apart from the phone number, only an e-mail address is provided on the sites. Only the website of the Poznan University of Technology (Institute of Management Engineering) additionally placed a form on its site that allows for contact with the university without the need to use an e-mail program. Unfortunately, the Poznan University of Technology does not provide an e-mail address on its site, so none of the examined sites received a full 3 points in the first part of the study.
The second part of the study concerns the analysis of basic problems in the field of website functionality. Here the conclusions are very sad. Apart from a few elements on the sites of several universities, nothing has changed since last year. There were no changes at all, or they were cosmetic in nature.
The second part of the study concerns the analysis of basic problems in the field of website functionality. Here the conclusions are very sad. Apart from a few elements on the sites of several universities, nothing has changed since last year. There were no changes at all, or they were cosmetic in nature.
There were also cases where some things were improved for the better, and some of those that were correct were replaced with erroneous solutions. Only the website of the Department of Logistics of the Poznan University of Economics and Business was built using relatively defined font sizes. This allows users with poorer eyesight to use the text enlargement options offered by browsers without any problems.
All other 19 sites completely ignore this problem. Only three sites: the International University of Logistics and Transport in Wroclaw, the Wroclaw University of Economics (Faculty of Management and Computer Science), and the Poznan University of Technology (Institute of Management Engineering) have a sitemap that allows visitors to orient themselves in the site’s information architecture and facilitates navigation. However, only the website of the Faculty of Management and Computer Science of the Wroclaw University of Economics has a different color for visited hyperlinks to distinguish them from those that have not yet been visited. Only three (of the examined) sites have valuable error message pages (for example, information that the page at the given address does not exist).
Only seven sites display correctly both when entering the “www” subdomain in the address and without it.
The third part is to check whether there are any additional difficulties on the sites. In this part of the study, all sites, just like last year, performed exemplarily, obtaining the maximum score. Finally, the compliance of the main pages of the examined universities, faculties, institutes, or departments with W3C (World Wide Web Consortium –