Evaluation of Web Pages of Central Libraries of Iranian Public Universities via Integration of WEBQUAL Model, Information Potential Gap Theory and Gap Theory: a Conceptual Model

The present research evaluates websites of central libraries of Iranian Public universities in terms of dimensions, constructs and items of WEBQUAL and presents a model in this field. WEBQUAL is an instrument which is used for measuring users’ perception of websites service quality and includes 4 dimensions, 12 constructs and 35 items. Respondents are asked to evaluate each item (question) in a 7-point Likert scale. In the present research, a survey was conducted by means of questionnaires on 13 libraries of Public universities in Iran which had been registered in the list of libraries and documents centers of Iranian Research Organization of science and technology(http://library.irost.ir) before January 2006. Results showed that the highest point belongs to “trust” construct and the lowest point belongs to “response time” construct in “usefulness” dimension in all 13 libraries.The greatest potential gap from (7) was (3.97) which belonged to total mean of the constructs of “entertainment” dimension in central library website of Tabriz University and the lowest potential gap (0.3) belonged to total mean of the constructs of “ease of use” dimension in central library website of Amir Kabir University. In general, considering the dimensions and constructs of WEBQUAL, the greatest score belonged to central library website of Amir Kabir University and the lowest score belonged to central library website of Tabriz University.