(excerpt from the book “Electronic Economy in Poland – 2005 Report”, prepared by the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing)
Between June and September 2005, the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing conducted a study on the information content and functionality of higher education institution websites in Poland. The study covered the websites of 163 universities, randomly selected from the list available on the Ministry of Education and Science website. The purpose of the study was to assess the actual state of Internet usage in the broadly defined educational process. Four areas of activity were defined in which the greatest university activity on the Internet was observed: library services, didactic activities, dean’s office work, and facilities for using the Internet. In these areas, the functions most frequently implemented on university websites were identified. The results of these studies are presented below.
The area of library services was the best-developed area of higher education activity on the Internet (Chart 1). A large number of universities possessing library catalogs is noteworthy. These are often the universities’ own developments, however, many catalog services used ready-made software that integrates the library catalogs of many universities. Library accounts were offered by 45 percent of universities. Typical functions of a library account on the Internet include checking the status of loans and access to on-line databases, electronic publications, and reserving publications in those services that offer such features. Very few university libraries offered mail-order sales of copies of library materials or on-line sales of publications. This situation was likely caused by the unprofitability of such activity, and in the latter case, also by technical problems.
The article comes from the magazine “e-Fakty 4/2006.