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An examination of prior Web pages shows that the typical university will sometimes make a discontinuous change to its Web site (i.e., a sudden, major shift in a Web site between two points in time). This exploratory empirical study examines reasons for such discontinuous changes, surveying university Webmasters at a variety of institutions where discontinuous Web site changes had occurred. Universities varied by type (public, private), by level (Bachelors, Masters, PhD), and by nation (Canada, USA). Four reasons for discontinuous Web site change, identified in an earlier study of discontinuous Web site change in state governments, were compared: rational, marketing, political, and institutional. According to the university Webmasters surveyed, rational reasons for change were most important, followed by marketing, institutional, and political reasons, in that order. The ordering of reasons reflects statistically significant differences among types of reasons. Results did not vary by type, level, or nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination of prior Web pages shows that the typical university will sometimes make a discontinuous change to its Web site (i.e., a sudden, major shift in a Web site between two points in time). This exploratory empirical study examines reasons for such discontinuous changes, surveying university Webmasters at a variety of institutions where discontinuous Web site changes had occurred. Universities varied by type (public, private), by level (Bachelors, Masters, PhD), and by nation (Canada, USA). Four reasons for discontinuous Web site change, identified in an earlier study of discontinuous Web site change in state governments, were compared: rational, marketing, political, and institutional. According to the university Webmasters surveyed, rational reasons for change were most important, followed by marketing, institutional, and political reasons, in that order. The ordering of reasons reflects statistically significant differences among types of reasons. Results did not vary by type, level, or nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the home pages of the 50 US states over the years 1997–2002 to discover the dimensions underlying people''s perceptions of state government home pages, to observe how those dimensions have changed over the years, to identify different types of state home pages, and to see how these types have changed. We found that three primary dimensions explain the variation in perceptions of home pages. These are the layout of the page, its navigation support, and its information density. Over the years, variation in navigation support declined and variation in information density increased. We discovered that four types of state government home page have existed continuously from 1997 to 2001. These are the ‘Long List of Text Links’, the ‘Simple Rectangle’, the ‘Short L’, and the ‘High Density/Long L’. To this taxonomy, two other page types can be added: the ‘Portal’ page and the ‘Boxes’ page. The taxonomy we have identified allows for a better understanding of the design of US state home pages, and may generalize to other categories of home pages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]