Information disclosed online by Spanish universities: content and explanatory factors

Introduction

The increase in global information required from universities nowadays may have its origin in the international globalisation process, which requires universities to become management units in search of new means of financing and interacting with public and private agents. The convergence programme derived from the Bologna Declaration in Europe has also doubtlessly influenced this process. Hence, in an increasingly competitive environment, higher education institutions should be concerned about their institution's positioning and image (Ivy, 2001, p. 276), and need to maintain or develop a distinct image to create a competitive advantage (Paramewaran and Glowacka, 1995).

The Spanish University Law (Boletín Oficial del Estado, 2007, p. 16241) establishes that “there exists a need to improve the quality of university systems, through a culture of evaluation of university services”, within the context of a full integration of the Spanish higher education system into the European Higher Education Area. Murias et al. (2008) suggest two main reasons for this:

• 1.

  the increase in competition among universities in order to recruit students; and

• 2.

  the new dynamism in the financing of these institutions.

The National Agency for Quality Evaluation and Accreditation (2008) also underlines the importance of disclosing information online in order to achieve quality certifications (particularly in doctoral studies). The National Agency for Quality Evaluation and Accreditation (ANECA) is the public agency which evaluates the quality of universities in Spain.

These information requirements, both those imposed by law and those derived from an increase in demand by stakeholders, justify the need to examine the disclosure of information by Spanish universities, including digital information. In this vein providing electronic information implies the use of information technologies to simplify the interactions between universities and those demanding information. Together with the advantages deriving from internet usage, there is a greater scope of information distribution and consequently a larger audience for the information revealed.

Recently most studies on the disclosure of information in universities have focused on surveys and interviews such as, for instance, Pettersen and Solstad (2007) for Norwegian universities, Fischer et al. (2004) and Gordon et al. (2002) for universities in the USA, Angluin and Scapens (2000) for universities in the UK, and Nelson et al. (2003) for Canadian universities.

However disclosure on the internet has not...