| This thesis defines what an effective academic web site is, and examines the utilization of web sites by the Land Grant colleges' foreign language departments. A system with the parameters of evaluation was created from studies that observed web users' perceptions of web sites. Four main factors were analyzed: informativeness, interactivity, entertainment, design and usability. The results showed that departments of foreign language are not projecting a positive image throughout their web sites. Moreover, the web masters of the foreign language departmental sites are not considering entertainment and interactivity features as fundamental elements in the development of academic web sites. |
