Scalability and Performance of Selected Websites of Universities: An Analytical Study of Punjab (India)

Abstract

Today, education has emerged as a major area of commercial activities. The access to various University websites through Internet has opened up new opportunities for the beneficiaries. The creation of these websites fully serves the purpose of educational institutions in advancing and achieving their goals. The varied information made available on these websites and the minimum transaction response time to address the queries of end-users can go a long way to influence their decision in selecting a particular course and an institution. The issue assumes greater significance especially in a developing country like India where a website development and deployment activity is primarily facing the shortage of formalized website design techniques and testing procedures. The performance of most of the University websites is reasonably well, but when accessed by only a few concurrent users. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyze and compare the scalability and performance of selected University websites of Punjab (India) by means of load testing. Simulation of realistic users’ behavior is achieved through LoadRunner, a software tool for performance testing. Of all the University websites under study, on the basis of their scalability and performance, it has been found that the websites of Deemed and Central universities are the most and least efficient respectively. The findings of this study can be of great significance for the higher educational institutions in improving the performance quality of their websites resulting into their better ranking and satisfaction of the stakeholders. The paper also outlines the scope for further research in the area under study.