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Application of the AHP method to create a ranking of criteria for assessing the reliability of websites

Adam Czerwiński

Abstract

Knowledge of how to obtain, evaluate, and use information effectively is essential not only for students and teachers (including the academic ones), but also for website designers, creators and content providers. This particularly applies to the possibility of assessing the credibility of websites. The problem is not only to select the appropriate categories and criteria for this assessment, but also to include all these criteria in the final assessment.

The aim of the article is to establish a ranking of the validity of the criteria for assessing the reliability of websites from the point of view of experts. This required answers to the following questions:

  • How to create a framework for assessing the credibility of websites?
  • Which of the multi-criteria assessment methods should be chosen to assess the validity of the criteria?
  • Which of the criteria for assessing the credibility of websites should be considered as the most important?

Saaty's AHP method was used to assess the validity of the criteria. The result of these studies is a ranking of importance for a set of selected 21 criteria for assessing the reliability of sites. It turned out that, according to experts, the quality of information and authenticity of the operator were at the top of the ranking. However, criteria such as functionality, performance and clarity of the sites and their appearance and structure are of secondary importance. A modern website must represent a sufficiently high level of its construction and operate within an appropriate infrastructure, so it should be reliable, functional, efficient and transparent. Therefore, the criteria listed in the expert opinion are now becoming less important.

Keywords: credibility, website, evaluation criteria, importance, ranking

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AUTHOR

Adam Czerwiński

About the article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15219/em87.1494

The article is in the printed version on pages 64-75.

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How to cite

Czerwiński, A. (2020). Zastosowanie metody AHP do tworzenia rankingu kryteriów oceny wiarygodności witryn internetowych. e-mentor, 5(87), 64-75. https://doi.org/10.15219/em87.1494