Journal of Technology in Counseling - Maddux - Torres-Rivera - Smaby

The last two decades have been a time of unprecedented change in almost every area of human endeavor. From science to politics to human relations, one of the few constants has been the speed with which one important change has followed on the heels of its predecessor. This has been particularly

true in the area of technology in general, and in computer technology in particular. In no more than 25 years, small computers have become ubiquitous and indispensable in almost every walk of life. Even more incredibly, in the last 12 years, the Internet and the World Wide Web have found their way into the most remote corners of the globe and have revolutionized the sending and receiving of information of every kind imaginable (Abney & Maddux, 2004). Thus, the power to publish information to a huge potential audience, once the exclusive province of only the largest corporations and government agencies, has now been extended to include any private citizen with an Internet connection, some basic computer equipment, and a little technical knowledge.

Such widespread and unprecedented technological changes in worldwide culture were bound to find their way into the lives of professionals in the helping professions, including counseling. In fact, in an article published six years ago in the first issue of the Journal of Technology in Counseling, we suggested that technology in general and the World Wide Web in particular were beginning to have a significant impact on the field of professional counseling (Torres-Rivera, Maddux, & Phan, 1999). Today, this would be considered a gross understatement, to say the least, as the field of counseling struggles with a number of controversies related to how (and if) computers should be used in counseling. In fact, Gary Walz, Director of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) suggests that while counselors continue to face many challenges, "None of these concerns have been expressed with more persistence and breadth than those related to technology and its impact on counseling" (Walz, 2000 p. xii). In addition, controversies related to the proper role of computers in counseling have generated a huge body of literature (Smith & Reynolds, 2002; Wolf, 2003).

Due to demographic changes in the population of the country and to increased awareness of the importance of sensitivity to human diversity, multicultural issues are also topics of rapidly growing importance in counseling. The increased importance of these issues is reflected in recent increases in the number of articles dealing with multicultural counseling appearing in American Counseling Association journals, and in the increased number of books dealing with these topics.

The phenomenal growth of the Web in size and popularity has resulted in increasing numbers of counselors and counselors in training who rely on the Web for information related to multicultural counseling. Because the Web is relatively new, becoming widely available for the first time in 1993, its usefulness as an information source for multicultural counseling is not known.

We decided to address this problem in a 1999 article in which we stated the purpose of the article as follows:

The purpose of the present study is to visit a representative sample of Web pages dealing with multicultural counseling, categorize the pages according to content, come to some general conclusions about design quality of the pages, and formulate some recommendations for developers of future Web pages dealing with this subject. Rather than producing yet another Web style and design guide to add to the several thousand currently available, the authors actually visited multicultural counseling web pages and evaluated them based on strengths and weaknesses experienced by a user who finds the page through use of a search engine. When available, an exemplary page for each category was chosen (Torres-Rivera, Maddux, & Phan, 1999).

After completing our study of a large sample of Web pages devoted to multicultural counseling, we concluded that the majority of pages reviewed demonstrated disappointingly poor sty le and design characteristics. Further, we concluded that in general, these pages did not provide useful, important information about multicultural counseling. Rather, most of the pages we examined presented "information about programs, departments, or services dealing with multicultural counseling, or about books, videotapes, or other reference material on the topic" (Torres-Rivera, Maddux, & Phan, 1999). We went on to provide some detailed and specific suggestions for improving the overall quality of Web pages dealing with multicultural counseling.

Results of the 1999 study were disappointing. However, the Web has grown considerably since 1999, both in size and in quality. One indication of the growth in number of Web pages devoted to multicultural counseling can be seen by comparing the number of such pages found in 1999 with the number found in 2005. In 1999, the AltaVista search engine (www.altavista.com) was used to find Web pages devoted to multicultural counseling. (AltaVista was chosen because at that time, it was the most popular of all search engines and contained one of the three largest databases [Notess, 2003]) The search string used was "multicultural counseling," and 1,132 pages were found. The same search string with AltaVista in 2005 found over 27,000 pages, while a 2005 search with Google (www.google.com), now the most popular search engine with the largest database (Sullivan, 2005), produced over 45,600 pages!

Because the original study is now more than six years old, and because of the phenomenal growth in size and popularity of the Web, we decided that is was time to replicate the 1999 study to see if the type and quality of Web pages related to multicultural counseling has improved, declined, or remained about the same.

In this study, it was decided to use the Google search engine to search for Web pages dealing with multicultural counseling. This decision was made because in the interim between the original 1999 study and the present study, Google displaced AltaVista in both popularity (now logging about 200 million searches per day) and size of searchable database (approximately 8 billion URLs) [Google, 2004; Sullivan, 2005]). The following search string, including the plus sign and the quotation marks was used: +"multicultural counseling". Over 45,600 pages were found.

In the 1999 study, the first 200 hits found by the search engine were visited, evaluated, and categorized. After eliminating duplicate pages and dead links (page or server no longer online), a total of 93 pages were viewed and included in the study. In order to try to make the results of this study consistent with that earlier study, we also located a total of 93 active pages. The first 93 active pages found were then visited, evaluated, and categorized into the same categories as those used in 1999. The names of the categories and the number of pages in each category for both studies are as follows:

	1999	2005
Category	# of Pages	# of Pages
Libraries	12	3
University Departments/Programs	16	2
University Courses	5	24
Miscellaneous University	7	6
Commercial Pages and Non-Profit Pages with Something to Sell	15	28
Personal Homepages	13	7
Organizations	19	21
Miscellaneous Others	6	2
Dead Links	6	6
TOTAL	99	99

Only three pages were found in this category, while 12 were found in 1999. One page found appeared to be the entry users of the library page would find when searching for the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development; another was a page from a university library in Canada informing the user that the electronic journal service requested was no longer available; and the third was another university library page, this time consisting of an abstract of a dissertation. Only one of these pages listed the name of the library sponsoring the page, and only one listed the name of a city in which the library could be found.

These pages are not useful as stand-alone pages, and they are examples of the many pages found on the Web that probably serve some kind of internal function for their sponsors, but which are obviously not intended for public consumption following a search engine query. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that none of the pages carried a META tag to prevent indexing of the page. Such a tag should be placed inside the HEAD of the page as follows:

The NOINDEX attribute instructs search engine programs to refrain from indexing the page on which it is found. The NOFOLLOW attribute prevents search engines from following any links on the page and consequently finding and indexing other pages on the Web site. The NOINDEX attribute can be used without NOFOLLOW if the page owner desires to prohibit indexing only of the specific page on which the META tag is found, but not other pages found through links on the page.

As anyone who uses the Web regularly can testify, the Web is cluttered with pages that are of no practical use. Consequently, every search engine query, no matter how expertly constructed, turns up entirely too many pages that merely occupy bandwidth and serve to needlessly increase the time it takes to find what is desired. At least two, and arguably all three of the library pages found in this study should have carried a META tag with a NOINDEX attribute. Such tags are honored by Google and some other search engines. One of the library pages even included a META tag with an INDEX attribute, the attribute specifically requesting indexing by Google and other search engines! One can only surmise that this was the result of use of some sort of HTML template, since search engine indexing would be of no imaginable use for any of the pages we found in this category.

Exemplary page. No exemplary library pages were found. We entered the URL for the exemplary page from the 1999 study, but found that the server is no longer online (or has had its name changed). After a search, we were able to locate a current page from that library, but were unable to find the specific page we reviewed in 1999. We have found that changing URLs seem to be a critical problem for many university-sponsored Web pages. Although there may be good technical reasons for changing the URL of a page, it is a serious practical problem for users who bookmark the page, especially since many universities do not provide a page to forward users from the old page to the new URL.

Changes since the first review in 1999. In 1999, there were 12 pages in this category, and many common problems were shared by these pages. One of the main problems at that time was that many library pages lacked any identifying information such as the name of the library and the campus and city where the library was located. In general, many of these 12 pages seemed not intended for general viewing and appeared to exist only for some purpose internal to the library that created it. Such problems were found again in the 2005 study, since all three of the library pages found lacked proper identifying information. Further, none of the three pages were useful as stand-alone pages, although all three appeared in the Google search for multicultural counseling pages. Those responsible for creating and maintaining library sites should scan all of their Web pages and ensure that proper identifying information and a purpose statement occurs on all pages, and that all pages would be of use to anyone finding them through a search engine query.

Only two pages fit this category in the present study, compared to 16 found in 1999. One page developed by the College of Education at a major university might have qualified as an exemplary page had it not been for the fact that it contains some outdated content. (The page was last updated more than two years ago and contains a number of outdated job announcements.) It is a shame that the page is not being maintained, since obsolescence is its only real weakness. The page is attractive but businesslike, and shows no sign of the distracting over-reliance on inappropriate color, graphics and animation that is becoming commonplace on the Web. Sponsorship of the page is clearly identified as the first information appearing at the top of the page includes the names of the university, department, and college. All links are functional, although as previously mentioned, some lead to outdated information such as talks and colloquia that have already taken place and job announcements for positions that have long been closed to applications. Links are conveniently located in a stripe down the left side of the page, and are well-chosen with the exception of the word "CALENDAR," which is not a link and should not be located in a list of links. "CALENDAR" was probably under development as a link at one time, but was not made into a link before the page was abandoned.

Exemplary Page. The exemplary page was the other page in this category and is maintained by the Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology in the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia. It can be found at http://escp.coe.missouri.edu/Multicultural/MulticulturalDescription.htm. The topic is a description of a graduate minor in multicultural psychology and education. This is one of the best pages found in this study. This and all pages on the site are attractive and uncluttered, but contain all necessary information. The page has a full set of identifiers prominently displayed at the top, and a colored stripe down the left side of the page presents a series of links to additional site pages. Topics for the links are well-chosen and all related pages are up-to-date. Links include People, Programs, Resources, News, and Search, with indented sublinks under each. All of these links are fully functional, well-chosen and designed, and highly informative. Text in the body of the page presents information under the main topics of description, core courses, auxiliary courses, and skill courses. All pages are fully documented with identifiers such as addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, department, college, university, and city. This is an outstanding departmental page.

Changes Since the First Review in 1999. In 1999, there were 16 pages found in this category, while only two were found in this 2005 study. It is not possible to determine why this reduction occurred, although departments with programs in multicultural counseling might want to consider why their pages are not appearing in the first 200 hits of a Google search for multicultural counseling. This may be because of the poor use of META tags (used by major search engines to categorize and describe pages, or because developers of other types of pages are doing a better job of writing META tags. Departments planning a page could profit from studying the exemplary page identified and described above.

There were 24 pages found in this category compared to five found in 1999. Unfortunately, the quality of pages in this category is extremely poor. There are two common problems found in all or most of these pages. The first is obsolete content. Most of the pages found have apparently been abandoned and are for courses offered in long-past semesters. Professors need to remove obsolete course syllabi, since they merely clutter the Web and make it more difficult to find what one is searching for.

Another common problem is failure to completely identify the course name and number, the department, the college and university, and the city and state where the university is located. In 12 of the 16 pages found, it was difficult or impossible to determine the university at which the course is offered.

Another problem found in some pages is overly-large margins. While some empty space improves the looks and readability of a page, there is a Web design style that has achieved some popularity in which half or more of the screen width is devoted to blank margins. This causes unnecessary scrolling and makes printouts excessively long.

We found one page that narrowly missed achieving exemplary status. The page is not without problems, and we were unable to identify it as exemplary. However, it is so superior to the other pages in this category that we decided to provide a detailed description and analysis of the specific problems we found. If these problems were rectified, we would rate the page as exemplary without reservations of any kind.

The page is intended as a supplement to a course in multicultural counseling. The page is attractively designed and brief enough to occupy no more than what is visible on the screen as soon as one arrives. The single paragraph on the page provides a brief welcome, the course name and number, and an excellent, written purpose statement. The name of the instructor appears at the bottom of the page.

A series of eight buttons located on the left side of the screen lead to other, related pages. Although the course is clearly identified as belonging to a specific institution, we were forced to click on one of the links in order to determine in what city the institution is located. When we followed that link, we were taken to the home page for the institution and discovered the city in which it is located. While the page includes much better and more complete identifiers than any of the other pages we looked at in this category, the city and state should be identified on the initial page. Unfortunately, the page includes a line at the bottom of the screen indicating that it was last updated in September of 1999. However, an examination of the code producing the page reveals that this line is not generated automatically from the date the file was last modified, and was manually inserted as plain text. Therefore, it may not be accurate, especially since there are other indications that the page is still in use and has been updated more recently than 1999. Webmasters should take care to keep current lines showing the last revision date of the page.

One of the buttons provided took us to an excellent course syllabus: very complete, but not overly detailed. The syllabus contains all necessary information about the course, the instructor, assignments, grades, and other relevant information. A button at the bottom of the page leads back to the home page for the course.

Another button is a link to a page devoted to the instructor, including a photograph and information including office hours, courses taught, telephone number, and a map to his office. Two other buttons are links to important content for the course, and both pages are well-designed, accurate, informative, and not too lengthy.

Another button is a link to a page making use of frames that is a discussion forum for the class. The right frame displays the form to submit comments and the left frame displays the topic line from past submissions or the text of any submission chosen. While most of the submissions carry dates in 1998 or 1999, there are several with 2005 dates, indicating that the page could still be in use, or that it was recently found by a few Web surfers who elected to post comments or questions related to multicultural counseling.

The Web Resources button leads to a page of links related to multicultural counseling. Unfortunately, quite a few of these links are obsolete and lead only to error messages. There are two other links that both lead to general pages developed and maintained by the college.

Changes since the first review in 1999. Many more pages were found in the current study (24) than in 1999 (5). Perhaps instructors of courses related to multicultural counseling are beginning to increase their use of the Web. Common problems include obsolete content, overly large margins, and failure to completely identify the course, the instructor, the sponsoring institution, the department, the page author, etc.

Seven pages were found in this category in 1999 and six were found in the present study. These are pages maintained by universities that do not fit into any of the other categories. One lists faculty members interested in multicultural counseling, one is a reference to an ERIC document, one is a university page produced following a search for multicultural counseling, one appears to summarize a funded project at a university (acronym given but never explained), one is a page describing counseling services offered at a university clinic, and one is a vita for a faculty member who is interested in multicultural counseling.

Exemplary page. The exemplary page in this category is maintained by the University of Minnesota to provide general information about counseling services and training and experience in multicultural service delivery offered at three different University of Minnesota campuses by the University Counseling and Consulting Services. The page can be found at http://www.ucs.umn.edu/pre-doctoral/pdmulti.html. The home page is simple and attractive, with a small banner at the top featuring the University logo and name, a small link to a student "one stop" page featuring links to frequently requested student information, a link to a page featuring University directories, and a link to a University search page. The body of the page features a table with three columns. The first column contains a number of links to pages offering general information about counseling and consulting services offered as well as predoctoral training programs in counseling. The middle column contains information about training and experience in multicultural service delivery. The column to the right of the screen contains links to more general information such as a welcome from the training director, a link to a page of links about specific training programs, a link to a page containing staff profiles, a link to a page about living in the Twin Cities, and a link to a page explaining application procedures. The font used on the home page and other pages is quite small, but a nice touch is the link at the bottom of the home page labeled "Trouble Seeing the Text?" This link leads to a page explaining how to increase the font size on all University pages. All links are functional, and all pages contain full identifying information and a link to go to the University of Minnesota home page. The only criticism is the line at the bottom of the home page that says it was last updated in 2003. However, the content of this and all related pages seems up-to-date, and examination of the code that produced the page reveals that the last date of revision is not automatically produced by a script, but typed into the code manually. Therefore, it is likely that whoever is in charge of page maintenance simply neglected to keep the date current each time the page was revised.

In general, the page was excellent. The focus is on making it easy to find information, and all links are functional. Identifiers are complete, and links to the main University page appear on all related pages on the site.

Changes since the first review in 1999. No big changes were found in this category. It is interesting that the exemplary page found in 1999 was also one produced by the University of Minnesota Counseling and Consulting Services. We did not remember that such was the case, and had already selected the above exemplary page before a look back at the 1999 manuscript revealed the coincidence.

The great increase in the number of commercial pages found (from 15 to 28) between 1999 and 2005 will come as no surprise to anyone who spends much time on the Web. Perhaps the clearest trend in Web development across topical areas is the degree to which the Web has become dominated by those with something to sell. The commercial pages in this category (the largest of our categories) tend to be "over-designed." That is, they tend to be far too busy and cluttered with too many graphics, and with links spread indiscriminately over the page. Color and animation tends to be overused, fonts are too small, and space is wasted. The majority of these pages (15) belong to major book publishers, and the pages advertise a number of books related to multicultural counseling.

Exemplary page. The exemplary commercial page is by Pearson Education and its purpose is to promote its Allyn and Bacon and Longman textbooks. The page we found features a book on multicultural counseling and can be found at http://www.ablongman.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0205321976,00.html. The only problem we found with the page is the small font used. Otherwise, the page is well-designed and easy to use.

Changes since the first review in 1999. Little has changed in this category except the large increase in number of pages. One change is that we found six pages that provide journal abstracts and that offer to sell full-text versions of articles. We also found two pages offering to sell term papers on any topic.

Most of the pages found and placed in this category belong to professors at various universities. One common problem is failure to identify the university and department at which the author is affiliated, failure to identify a purpose for the page, and failure to keep the page up-to-date.

Changes since the first review in 1999. Little has changed in this category. Seven pages were found in this category compared to 13 found in 1999. Most of the same problems were found in this study that we found in 1999.

This large category (21 pages) consists of pages maintained by various organizations. The most glaring problem found in these pages is a failure to keep pages up to date. This is understandable in light of the fact that many of these pages are probably maintained by volunteers. However, it reflects badly on an organization to post a page with many dead links, or a call for papers and a preliminary program for a 1997 conference, as does one page. Other problems include failure to clearly identify the organization and its geographic location, failure to clearly identify the organization and its geographic location, failure to include a purpose statement, and failure to provide email or other information regarding a contact person.

Exemplary page. The exemplary page in this category is by the American Counseling Association (ACA), and is a page devoted to multicultural and diversity issues. The only complaint we have is that the URL is very long: http://www.counseling.org/Content/NavigationMenu/RESOURCES/MULTICULTURALANDDIVERSITYISSUES/

Multicultural_and_D.htm (link). The page is attractive and brief and provides a good purpose statement. All links are functional and the information appears to be up-to-date. The page is easy to use, and a menu bar at the top and bottom of the page and other related pages accessed from it makes it easy to find one's way around the site. One small problem is that the list of links in the menu stripe down the left side of the page is longer than the content of the page in the rest of the screen. Such a long list of links need to be organized in some manner - either ordered alphabetically or by topic. However, the page is attractive and efficient, and a great deal of information is available by using the links on the page.

Changes since the first review in 1999. Little has changed in this category. Nineteen pages were found in 1999, and 21 pages were found in this study. Pages maintained by organizations are still commonly found with this search string, and problems still include nonfunctional links, lack of a clear purpose statement, obsolete content, and failure to provide complete identifiers.

Two pages did not fit in any other category. One was a page for a government agency and one was an ERIC digest of articles. These pages were neither significantly better nor worse than typical pages in other categories.

Changes since the first review in 1999. No significant changes were apparent in this small category.

The Web has grown at a fantastic rate since the first review of multicultural Web pages in 1999 (Torres-Rivera, Maddux, & Phan, L. ,1999). As the Web has grown, there has been corresponding incredible growth in the number of Web pages available that deal with multicultural counseling. In 1999, 1,132 such pages were found, while over 46,500 pages were found for this 2005 study.

Unfortunately, the pages found in 2005 include most of the same kinds of errors found in 1999. Webmasters in charge of these pages still do not seem to realize that most Web users find the pages they visit through use of a search engine rather than by selecting a link from another page. Therefore, it is critical that all pages on a site include full identifiers and a link back to the site home page. Many pages found in this study lack a clear statement of purpose and include broken links and grossly outdated information. Some pages appear to have been abandoned, sometimes for years. Webmasters should always delete abandoned pages, as the Web is cluttered with such derelict sites that serve only to make it more difficult for users to find the information they are seeking.

One difference we found between 1999 and 2005 is the greatly increased commercial presence on the Web. The "commercial pages" category was the largest one found with 28 pages in 2005 compared to 15 found in 1999. We noticed that these pages often displayed sophisticated technical features such as intricate visual effects including complex and colorful drop-down windows, intricate mouse roll-over effects, animated graphics, and drop-down ads. However, this often contributes to a cluttered, distracting environment for such pages, and we feel such features often detract from the effectiveness of a page.

In 1999, we provided a list of twenty suggestions to improve the quality of Web sites devoted to multicultural counseling. We believe these recommendations are still appropriate. They include:

1. A clear and complete identification of the name and address of the sponsor, located near the top of the page.

2. Prominent display of a headline near the top of the page giving the title of that page.

4. Pages of reasonable length, probably no longer than several screens in length. Extensive data should be "chunked" into many short files with hot links to each document located on the primary page.

5. A link back to the original page located at the bottom of all pages that are reached by choosing a link on the original page.

7. Correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling on all pages, and use of professional language at all times.

9. Judicious use of images: enough to be attractive, but not so many that the page takes excessive time to load over modems.

10. Small images that are actually links (clickable, thumbnail images) to any large images that may require long loading times over modems. The number of bytes in the larger image displayed below clickable images as described above so that users can decide whether or not they wish to wait for the larger image to load.

11. All images programmed to display a name or description if the page if viewed with a browser that cannot display images.

12. All images programmed with height and width of the image specified to make text viewable while images load.

13. Imagemaps used sparingly and always with an alternative list of links in case the page is viewed with a browser that cannot display imagemaps.

14. External links that are checked at least every few weeks to be sure they continue to work.

15. Pages that have been viewed in the most popular browsers (at least Netscape, Internet Explorer, and Lynx) to be sure that they are effective no matter which browser is used.

16. Footers on every page containing at least a link to the sponsor's home page, a link to the primary page (if a secondary page), the URL (address) of the page itself, a hot e-mail link (displaying the exact e-mail address) for questions and comments, the name of the author of the page, and the date the page was last modified.

17. Graphics that are used only with permission of the owner or after assuring that they are not copyrighted and are in the public domain.

18. A "credits" section near the bottom of the page that gives a hot link to any sites where graphics have been obtained.

19. Frequently revised, up-to-date content that will motivate users to return frequently to the page.

20. TITLE and META tags on all pages so that the viewer's browser will display the title in the title line, and so that search engines will list the title and a clear, concise, and accurate description of the page. (Torres-Rivera, Maddux, & Phan, 1999)

We would especially emphasize the importance of making sure all pages contain up-to-date content, and the need to delete abandoned or obsolete pages. As the Web continues to grow in size, the problem of abandoned sites and sites with obsolete content will become ever more critical. Most users find Web sites through search engines, and every abandoned or obsolete site listed high up in a search engine "hit list" occupies a spot in that list that could have been occupied by an exemplary site. If obsolete sites become too numerous, their sheer number could materially decrease or even destroy the usefulness of search engines, which are currently the only systematic and practical way to locate information on the Web.

The Web is an incredible resource that has begun to revolutionize cultures across the globe. Its potential for improving multicultural counseling knowledge and skills seems unlimited. However, that potential can be increased materially if those who maintain Web pages related to multicultural counseling strive to avoid some of the design and maintenance problems described in this study.

Walz, G. (2000). Prologue. In G. R. Walz and J. W. Bloom (Eds.), Cybercounseling and cyberlearning: Strategies and resources for the millennium, pp. xi-xvii. Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association and Greensboro, NC: ERIC Counseling and Student Services Clearinghouse.

Wolf, A. W. (2003). Introduction to the special issue. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 40 (1-2), 3-7.