Education websites and their benefits to potential international students: a case study of higher education service providers in Malaysia

This paper looks at criteria on how education service providers' websites could benefit their potential students from overseas. Effective design of education website is important as web users are typically fastidious and want information fast--this serves as the background of this study. The study focuses on three selected education institutions' websites; identifying their strengths and weaknesses, followed by recommendation on how institutions can improve their websites to gain good impression or perception from potential customers, such that they will re-visit the websites to get more information. Ultimately, the goal is to turn potential students to real students. Three education service providers (all located in Penang, Malaysia) have been identified and used for this study. They are INTI International College Penang, KDU College Penang and Olympia College Penang. These websites are examined against a list of criteria: source, layout, accessibility, speed, navigability, content, accuracy, level of details, current information and appearance. Based on the study done, the KDU College website is the best website compared to the other two colleges. Nevertheless, further improvement can be made in terms of displaying all course fees, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for international and local student admission, and contact information for faculty, staff and students.