Evaluation of distance education websites: a hybrid multicriteria approach

Abstract

This study provides an evaluation model that prioritizes the relative weights of various distance education websites. The proposed approach consists of four sequential steps. In the first step, 25 different subcriteria under 4 major criteria are gathered from the existing literature. Identified criteria are weighted by stakeholders of distance education websites using the analytic network process outlined in the second step. In the third step, the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method is applied in order to rank the 15 different Turkish distance education website alternatives. Finally, in the fourth step, different scenario analyses are applied to ascertain the influence of criteria groups (generated according to their qualitative and quantitative characteristics) on the selection of the best website.