7 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

Critical Issues in Evaluating Electronic Resources
There are a number of critical issues to be considered including content, access,
timeliness, cataloging, and sustainability, usability, usage assessment and statistics,
technical performance and service levels, pricing structure and licensing term.
Content
The quality of digital content like print content is judged by a number of factors including
the authority of the resource, comprehensiveness, completeness, currency, accuracy,
clarity, uniqueness and conformity to academic standards and conventions. If the product
has a print, it is important to determine whether the electronic version contains all of the
content that is available in the print version. If graphics are included in the electronic
version, major concerns focus on the image clarity and consistency. In the databases
care should be taken to check whether access to all the titles and articles are possible.
JAKE (Jointly Administrated Knowledge Environment) is a freeware metadata
management system and online database used to find, link and compare journal titles and
union lists (http://jake.med.yale.edu) if is particularly useful for identifying duplicate fulltext
holding.
Sustainability
Sustainability requires that the cost of acquiring and maintaining a resource reflect lasting
value and contributes to the integrity of the collection. Availability of the archiving
service needs to be checked. The policy on retaining electronic back files of online data
should also be specified in the evaluation.
Usability
During product trial it is possible to look at the usability of the resource. Usability includes
ease of use, graphic design features and navigability. Since patrons’ access to resources
depends upon hardware, software and network connections, resources must be evaluated
using a mix of operating systems and browsers. Both basic and advanced search should be
available and easily located.
Usage Assessment Statistics
Usage statistics theoretically offer a quantitative method for evaluating the use of
electronic resources. In addition, usage statistics are used in basic cost-benefit analyses to
determined cost per use of a resource and to justify its expenses.
Access
In any well based resource, access is a critical component. Two major issues surrounding
access include copying restriction (copying, lending or electronic reserve) and
authentication of institutionally affiliated computers network and remote users. It is also
important to consider whether the users are able to print download, e-mail the content as
well as cut and paste from the resource.
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