Academic Website Evaluation

Access Science by Mcgraw-Hill

The website I am about to evaluate is called “Access Science” by McGraw-Hill. Its URL once signed into the Binghamton library system is: http://www.accessscience.com.proxy.binghamton.edu/index. I believe that when you evaluate something, you must compare it to something else; weighing the pros and cons. When we place an object into our consideration without relating it to any other of the same category, our judgment is likely to come across as inaccurate due to the lack of a reference point. Therefore I will be comparing it to another search engine/website which deals with Science also; Science-Direct with the following link http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.binghamton.edu/ (Binghamton Library system).

Three important features
1- Options
Research and academics is all about options. Not everyone is writing a paper on botany, there needs to be more options in a science based search engine other than plants. With that being said, both Science Direct and Access science have tons and tons of research categories available. Both websites allow you to search from A to Z, and then lead to further information related to the Alphabet/Term picked by the user. They are an even match as far as pure information goes.

2- Presentation
Since both the websites have a lot of options, we need to look for other factors which can help us distinguish between the two. Presentation of an academic website plays a far bigger role than we can imagine, researchers indicate (Heard it on discovery channel long ago – Can’t link the source) that some colors and shapes are easier to look at for hours and hours compared to others. Science-direct is green in color with lots of numbers and letters all over, but there is not a single picture! Honestly the fact that Access Science has a Panda on the home page is enough for me to go to the website far more than Science- Direct; I am a human after all. Who ever created Science Direct probably put a lot of work into the coding and manufacturing of the web engine, but they really have no one working on the website’s aesthetic ability. Without pictures and presentations anything is boring, so Access- Science definitely wins in this category.

3- Personalization / Support
After checking through the main webpage of the website, the personalization options in Access Science seem to be far better than that of Science-Direct. Access science also lists 1200 biographies by scientists along with a periodic table and further study options on the left side. There is also a tab for librarians up top. I am sure Science-Direct has these options available too, but they are not as easy to find (Students are very limited on time so a website which makes it easier to personalize search goes a long way). But honestly the pictures and illustrations alone are good enough, Science-Direct needs to add more than just alphabets to their main page. Overall I give Access-Science a 9.5/10.

Citation:-
McGraw-Hill's Access Science. McGraw-Hill. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. .

by
Syed, Shahnawaz