TPC-Journal-V2-Issue2

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 2 164 Table 1 Faculty Information on CACREP Counseling Program Webpages Faculty Information Item Total Number Available among 220 Program Web Pages Percentage of Total Faculty Numbers Faculty Roster 1469 191 100% Faculty Email Address 1254 169 85.4% Faculty Degrees 1072 167 73% Faculty Pictures 1004 153 68.3% Faculty Web Pages 875 138 59.6% Faculty Research Interests 702 143 47.8% Faculty Credentials 522 138 35.5% Faculty Publications 514 109 35% Faculty Vitas 337 72 22.9% Faculty Presentations 326 85 22.2% The list in Table 1 showed a ranking of faculty information available to online public access. Among the total of 220 program webpages, there were 191 webpages posting faculty rosters which could be used to count the full-time counselor educators in those departments. A total of 1,469 counselor educators were listed as full-time faculty members. Not all categories were available on all 191 program webpages. The third column displayed the numbers of program webpages allowing access to a particular category. Among the 1,469 counselor educators, there were 1,254 e-mail addresses (85.4%) and 1,072 highest graduate degrees (73%) posted with the faculty names. Faculty photos were found on 1,004 counselor educators (68.3%), but only 875 faculty webpages (59.6%), which were used to present personalized information about counselor educators, were able to be found on program webpages. Counselor educators’ research interests were accessible for 702 faculty members (47.8%). A total of 522 counselor educators (35.5%) had displayed the professional credentials or licenses they held. The program webpages only posted the publication records of 514 counselor educators (35%) and professional presentation of 326 (22.2%). Faculty vitas were made available on 72 program webpages with a count of 337 counselor educators (22.9%). Discussion Webpages have become a popular media for online information disclosure and exchange (Bateman, Pike, & Butler, 2011; Tapscott & Williams, 2008). The Internet is a crucial technological tool which counseling programs are utilizing. In this study, 84% of counseling departments were accessed and 88.9% of CACREP-accredited counseling program webpages were reviewed. This percentage was close to the number (86%) reported by a previous study (Quinn, Hohenshil, & Fortune, 2002). Most counseling programs, 90% or more, listed their contact information (mailing, e-mail, phone, and program director’s contact information) as well as program description (97.7%) and CACREP accreditation information (97.3%) on their webpages. Such findings concurred with results found in a previous study indicating that a high percentage (above 75%) of contact information could be detected on department webpages (McGlothlin et al., 2008). However, our findings endorsed improved display of CACREP information (an increase from 62% to 97.3%) and program description (from 75% to 97.7%). The accessibilities of program goals, mission and vision were all below 69%, with vision being the lowest (12%). Although our findings indicated that program vision was not a common item on department webpages, students should have easy access to contacting a counseling program and identifying whether or not a program