Development and validation of a web interface for research management in Kerala Agricultural University

Abstract

Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) is the prime organisation in Kerala involved in agricultural research. Research activities in KAU are organised and conducted at six Regional Research Stations, 16 Research Stations, some specialised centres of research and studies, Instructional Farms, and in the laboratories of various departments of the colleges. It is very difficult to manage and monitor all these research projects by the research administration in KAU without a Management Information System (MIS). A web interface which can be integrated with a data base will solve this problem to a large extent. The present study entitled “Development and validation of web interface for research management in Kerala Agricultural University” was taken up in this background to identify the information needs of researchers and research administrators, to develop a web interface for research management and to conduct an end user assessment of the developed web interface. Sixty researchers and 30 research administrators were selected for the study. Thirteen research need domains were identified and there were 77 information need items under 13 domains. The study showed that there was significant concordance in the rating/ ranking of the information needs by researchers under all domains. The information needs mostly needed by the researchers included information on different sections in the DR’s office that deals with different project categories, collaboration the university has with other agencies, areas of specialization of scientists of KAU, guidelines for submission of progress of project to the funding agencies, guidelines for submitting project proposals to funding agencies, various facilities available in the university for research, formalities to be undergone to avail these facilities, updated statistics of Indian agriculture, updated statistics of Kerala agriculture, sources of getting research materials like inputs/ equipment for doing research, 105

information on online journals, status of project proposals submitted, and abstracts of research results. The research administrators’ major information needs included information on area of specialization of scientists of KAU, research stations/centres in KAU, information on different sections in the DR’s office that deals different project categories, chairpersons and members of PC groups, thrust area of each PC group, contact details of scientists of KAU, formalities for getting/giving administrative sanction and technical sanction, agencies from whom funds are received in KAU, guidelines for submission of progress of project to the funding agencies, areas of specialization of different funding agencies, updated statistics of Kerala agriculture, popular journals in agriculture, research works presently undergoing in KAU, information on PG and Ph.D. research works, status of project proposals submitted, detailed report of projects, abstract reports of the research work completed, details of research results, technologies commercialized, technologies for commercialization, and technologies recently developed. The significant difference, if any, among researchers and research administrators on each of the information needs were also assessed using Mann-Whitney U test. In addition, the details on individual projects to be included in the Management Information System (MIS) required for research management, additional links/labels in the web interface, the preferred format of presentation of the website, the facilities and services for doing research in KAU that are to be included in the web interface were also identified. Based on the above analysis, a web interface was developed as a prototype of the website for Directorate of Research. The interface was developed using HTML and designed with a simple cascade style sheet. There are 18 links in the homepage with a total of 103 web pages. The end user assessment of the web interface revealed that among the six design elements such as ‘home page’, ‘navigation’, ‘organization’, ‘links and labels’ and ‘readability’ that were used to assess the web 106

interface, the readability of the web interface needed more improvement. The constraints in using the web interface as well as suggestions for improvement and scaling up of the interface were also elicited. The prototype developed as part of the study will be handed over to the Directorate of Research, KAU for content enrichment as per the suggestions of the study.