Virtual reference service evaluation: An application of unobtrusive research methods and the Virtual Reference Desk's Facets of Quality for Digital Reference Service
Kristen A. Bullard · Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · 2019
This paper focuses on the quality of virtual reference service in public institutions classified by the Carnegie Classification as Doctoral/Research--Intensive and Doctoral/Research--Extensive universities. Virtual reference service for ten different universities was evaluated by utilizing the Virtual Reference Desk organization's Facets of Quality for Digital Reference. Using unobtrusive methods the investigator posed the same reference question to seven of the ten sites; investigating the following Facets of Quality: "prompt turnaround, instructive, and interactive". All ten universities' Web sites were evaluated by the following Facets of Quality: accessible, publicize, clear response policy, privacy, and access to related information. This study finds not only that the same issues of reference quality that exist in other methods of reference delivery also exist in virtual reference; but that there is a need for further standardization in virtual reference and a need for specific adaptations to the Facets of Quality for Digital Reference to reflect the specialized nature of virtual reference and the evaluation of virtual reference.