Modelo de calidad para portales web universitarios del Ecuador. Estudio de casos

Abstract

management transparent and in ensuring the quality of the services they offer. To reach these goals, web portals should consider a set of desirable features and attributes aimed to improve their quality. This research work proposes the use of an external quality model assessing the quality of the university’s web portal. The model is framed by the public policies of Ecuador such that it can be applied as either, a future development guide or to improve current quality services. A comprehensive bibliographic review of the most used quality models, both generic and specific to the domain, led us to the design of a hierarchical model formed by five main features: functionality, efficiency, usability, reliability and content. The latter has been structured to match Ecuadorian’s transparency rules on the presentation of public information and the quality policies of higher education. As test three web portals from accredited institutions (category “A”), currently offering both graduate and postgraduate programs, were selected and screened by the developed model. As a result, the obtained global quality preference (GP) indicator is: Marginal Acceptability, whose interpretation reveals that the evaluated web portals need to be improved.