The web is a tool for active learning. It helps learners get involved more and more in learning. It is a place where one can read and read, and then read some more � without being forced to respond in ways that demonstrate learning. Learners can be successful and highly motivated when they thrive on vast amounts of web information. It is questionable that how the effectiveness of education websites can be measured.
In education websites, they can be evaluated with eight criteria:
Purpose: The effective website or page should clearly indicate for what the website is established.
Authority: The effective website or page should indicate who is the web author, what his/her credentials are, whether he/she has authority to speak on the subject and if she has any way to contact, if there is an organizational or corporate sponsor, if there is a reference list.
Objectivity: The effective website or page should clearly indicate what goals/objectives the websites meet and how detailed the information is.
Appropriateness and Relevance: The effective website or page should have the content that is appropriate, accurate, complete and well-written, reading level; and relevant content to the topic or question for each age and developmental level of the students. Furthermore, effective web site should be made based on the appropriateness of the culture and tradition of the users.
Currency: The effective website or page should have the updated information. It should also indicate when it was last updated. And the date when the information was created and the page was last updated.
Responsibility: The author of the website or page should be up-front about the purpose of the web or page, give contact detail, credit for information used and reference list.
Clarity: The information in the effective web or page should be clearly presented and well organized. The text should be neat, legible, and formatted for easy reading. If there are advertisements, the web designer should make sure that that do not interfere the users� ability to the page.
Accessibility: The effective website or page should be easy for the users to access and download.
Apart from the criteria above, the effective website / page should have coverage what can link to other useful websites in relation to the learners� subject. So that the leaner can explore more knowledge of the subject.
User interface is another important thing that effective education website. This refers to something that the users can evaluate what they have learnt for example the exercise or the activity for the web users.
In conclusion, web evaluation is important for website improvement because evaluation can helps the website to meet the need of the user. And the users will not feel fed-up with the web they use.