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General Website Evaluation Criteria

Updated May 2005

How should legal information posted by government entities be evaluated?
How can users determine if the material is up-to-date, reliable, and trustworthy? 
What features distinguish a great source of legal information from a poor source?

Members of the Access to Electronic Legal Information Committee have developed tailored sets of criteria for evaluating legal and government information at government web sites. The criteria sets include the "General Evaluation Criteria for All Web Sites Providing Legal Information" and four other criteria sets that provide "Evaluation Criteria Specific to Judicial, Legislative, Executive Branch, and Local Government Web Sites." 

Recently, members of the Committee have begun developing Evaluation Guideline Worksheets based directly upon the Criteria and welcome you to ‘beta-test’ the new General Website Evaluation Worksheet or the Local Government Evaluation Worksheet, analyze how well a Website provides access to laws and legal materials, and send us your feedback!

1. Content
   
   
   1. Coverage
      How extensive is the coverage of legal material produced by the agency? Are all, or only some of an appellate court's opinions provided? Does the legislature's web site contain bills and bill status from the current session only, or are past sessions included? Does it include a table showing where the bill sections are codified, if needed? Does the administrative agency provide all of its administrative decisions and enforcement actions or are only selected decisions posted? Is the administrative code included? Are proposed rules and hearing dates (with contact person) included? The more extensive the coverage, the more useful the web site will be for legal research.
      
      
   2. Text
      Does the web site provide the full and complete text of each legal document or are only summaries, digests, or citations given? Is document size indicated? Are long documents highlighted in some way to alert users to expect longer than normal downloading or printing intervals? Does the site contain spelling and/or grammatical errors? The complete text of each legal document is preferred to abbreviated versions. Warnings about long documents are a service to users with slower computers and modem speeds.
      
      
   3. Format
      In what format(s) are the legal documents? Common formats include ASCII, hypertext markup language (HTML), word-processed, and graphical (such as Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format). Is the format appropriate to the content and purpose of the document? Are document formats other than ASCII and HTML indicated? Does the web site provide links to third-party software necessary for viewing documents in PDF and word-processed formats?
      
      HTML is the preferred format for most legal materials on the Internet. Graphical formats, such as Adobe's Portable Document Format, are frequently used to ensure an exact reproduction of a printed document and original pagination. In every case where a format other than HTML or ASCII is used, the web site should include a link to the source of the third-party viewer software. .
      
      
   4. Context
      Does the web site explain the importance and legal standing of the legal documents presented? Are proposed documents distinguished from adopted and in-force documents? Is common, everyday language used to describe the legal material? Web sites that provide explanations of the legal documents help users understand the relevance and interdependence of legal materials.
      
      
   5. Status
      Is each legal document dated with its effective date? Does the web site indicate how or where to update the legal information it provides? Does it include the date of the last revision? Is the historical information included with the code section?
      
      Competent legal research requires access to current legal materials. All legal sources on the web should prominently display effective dates or dates of issuance.
      
      Do each of the web pages on the site indicate when it was last updated?
      
      
   6. Reference
      Does each legal document provide citation information? Is each legal document given a distinct Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or other unique identifier so that it may be retrieved from the web site's database or search feature?
      
      For legal information on the Internet to be truly useful, it must be "citable." Unique URLs or other identifiers enable users to refer to the web-accessible document with specificity.
      
      
   7. Stability
      Does the web site maintain archival or historical legal documents or only the current material? Are the legal documents maintained under permanent or persistent URLs? Can users rely on the web site to permanently maintain the legal document produced by the agency or government entity? Legal material should be permanently available at the issuing agency's web site and, ideally, at the same URL.
      
      
   8. Disclaimers
      Does the web site include a disclaimer as to the reliability or trustworthiness of the legal information it provides? Does the web site provide "unofficial" versions of the legal material produced by government entity? If the web version is not considered authoritative by the legislature or courts, is the user warned upfront by an obvious disclaimer?

      Disclaimers as to reliability and trustworthiness of a government agency's own information are inappropriate. Government agencies have a responsibility to provide accurate, current, and genuine legal information on their web sites.

   9. Authority
      Can the author/source of the material clearly be identified? What are the author's credentials? Can you easily determine the author/publisher's reputation? Can you easily contact the author/webmaster with questions or comments? Is the author responsive to questions and comments? Is the information presented with a minimum of bias?
      
      In a large website with multiple pages, is this information located on more than one page, or only on the home page?
      
      
   10. Rating System
       Does the site have a review or rating system? If so, are the review's qualifications and/or rating criteria provided? Does the site have a counter of users hits?
       
       
   11. Purpose
       Is the intent or focus of the site clearly stated on the main page? Is the intended audience easily determined from the main page?
       
       
   12. Statement of Ownership and Use
       If the content on the web site is copyrighted, the site should contain information as to how the copyrighted content may be used and who to contact for permission, if needed.
       
       
   13. Service
       Government web sites should be as service oriented as possible. Ideally, web sites should enable users to subscribe to email updates when new content is posted.
       
       
2. Organization
   
   
   1. Legal Link
      Is the legal information clearly identifiable from the agency's homepage? Are different types of legal information clustered together under a "Legal" or "Laws" link on the navigation bar? A single point of access to all of the legal material provided on the web site allows users to quickly find the information.
      
      
   2. Arrangement
      How are the legal documents organized? Does the web site provide several ways for users to locate specific legal information?
      
      If it is a code with revisions, is the revision date somewhere on the page?
      
      Simple chronological lists of legal documents are inefficient and unhelpful for many users.
      
      
   3. Search Features
      If the legal documents are stored in a database, how flexible and powerful is the search engine? Does the search engine allow keyword searching? Does the search engine allow field searching (for instance, searching by the names of parties in court opinions or subjects in statutory codes)? Does the web site include a description of how to search the database with examples?
      
      Legal documents stored in databases are part of the Internet's "invisible web." Good search engines are necessary to make these materials visible.
      
      Is it possible to search the site? Does site search engine have advanced searching capabilities? Does the site contain a site map? Does the site contain good indexes and meaningful subject lists?
      
      
3. Navigation and Usability
   
   
   1. Hyperlinks
      In legal documents that refer to other legal documents at the same web site, are those documents connected by hyperlinks?
      
      The use of hyperlinks between legal documents facilitates legal research and increases the use of legal materials posted at the web site.
      
      
   2. Ease of Use
      In long documents are tables of contents used? Can visitors move easily within parts of documents? If it is an Adobe work, are hyperlinks to the individual sections inserted in the table of contents for ease of navigation through a long document?
      
      Is the table of contents in outline format, for ease of expanding a chapter to show the individual sections or collapsing the sections to return to the chapter designation?
      
      Is there a Help/FAQ link? Can you search the website?
      Is there a site map? Is navigation on the site consistent and intuitive?
      
      The use of internal navigation links makes online reading and selective printing easier for users.
      
      
4. Accessibility
   
   
   1. Compliance
      Does the web site comply with the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/)? Is the web site Bobby-approved (bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp)?
      
      Does the web site provide visually-impaired and other handicapped [disabled] users the option of viewing a "text-only" page, or is each link labeled with text labels that pop up when the cursor rolls over the link, or is each link labeled with text labels that pop up when the cursor rolls over the link?
      
      If applicable, the site should comply with the rule implementing Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 (www.access-board.gov/sec508/508standards.htm).
      
      All users are entitled to see and use legal information posted at government web sites.
      
      
   2. Compatibility
      Is the web site viewable and functional with as many browser versions as feasible?
      
      Government web sites should be accessible from any web browser, not just the latest [or only earlier] versions of a single commercial product.
      
      
   3. Contact Information
      Does the web site provide an email link to the person[s] responsible for managing the web site? Does the collection of legal information bear a contact link?
      
      At the very least, each government web site should provide an email link and full address and phone number so that users can report broken links or problems with accessing material at the web site. Ideally, users should also be able to email a responsible government official with questions about legal content. Email recipients should respond promptly to questions and reported problems.

General Evaluation Criteria Worksheet

This tool is a document in development that the committee continues to work on. If you have any suggestions on how the committee can improve the effectiveness of this worksheet, please feel free to e-mail your comments to the Committee Chairperson, Timothy Coggins at: tcoggins@richmond.edu

Worksheet

Would you like to suggest other criteria that the Committee should consider?
Please email the Committee Chairperson, Timothy Coggins at: tcoggins@richmond.edu


This site has been considered and approved by the American Association of Law Libraries Executive Board.