The Quality of Education-related Portals in Germany: Results of a Multi-method Evaluation of the German Education Server and Beyond

Abstract:

The German Education Server is a meta-server which provides reliable and up-to-date information for users in different areas of education: Primary and Secondary Education, Higher Education, Vocational Education, Continuing and Adult Education, Educational Research etc. High usage statistics and positive user feedback document general acceptance of what the portal has to offer. Log file analyses provide valuable insight in differential usage of various content areas. However, little was known so far about user-group specific satisfaction with individual aspects of the content and its presentation in comparison with other education-related portals. In this presentation, we report on a triangular evaluation effort in which results from general log file data analyses were combined with attitudes and opinions gathered in a comprehensive nation-wide representative online survey and individual feedback from in-depth usability tests to assess expectations and satisfaction of users and non-users with regard to the presentation and dissemination of educational information.