CPSnet Web Awards Program, awards for sites skies above.

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2005-07-08, Awarded "Best Award Graphic" by AFA
We are proud to announce that the HITSASeal was selected as the "Best Award Graphic" by AFA, for the month of July of 2005. To all EUTODA' staff our sincere thanks for this honour! More info about this award is available at our "Honors Granted" section.
2005-06-22, Listed #2 among 31,000 web sites at Silktide SiteScore
With a rating of 9.5 (in 10 possible), the CPSnet Web Awards attained the second position at SiteScore's TOP 750, the best 750 from about 31,000 web sites tested until this date. Silktide SiteScore is a free tool which rates how well designed, popular and accessible a website is. The entire testing process is handled by advanced computer software. SiteScore also gathers user feedback on all the websites rated, to help judge how appealing a design is. SiteScore rates all websites on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest). Scores are broken down into 5 categories: Marketing, Design, Accessibility, Experience and User Feedback.
2005-06-07, listed at "Design Snack"
Design Snack is a database of websites rated based on the quality of their design and presentation. Its unique rating scale uses "cookies" and a site can get anywhere from 0-3 cookies, 3 being the highest. The CPSnet Web Awards were rated with "One Cookie" and listed under the "Award Sites" section of the portal.
2005-05-15, rated 6 by EUTODA
We are proud to announce that our program is now one of the few Web awards programs to achieve the prestigious level 6 at EUTODA, the Academy of Fine Awards. To all EUTODA' staff our sincere thanks for this honour!
2005-02-02, recognized as a 5+ Elite Award by Award Sites!
As it states at Award Sites!, "In recognition of owner, Carlos Simões, for his efforts going well beyond his award program in 'bettering the net through excellence!'". Needless to say that we at the CPSnet Web Awards are honoured by this outstanding distinction. Thank You AS! and thank you all the awardmasters and applicants that helped building this program!
2005-01-16, selected the Site Of The Year 2004!
It is that time of the year again, when we at the CPSnet Web Awards select the best site of the previous year. And this time, our panel of invited judges and our permanent review team have selected Tim's Spider Corner as the Best Site Of The Year 2004! Congratulations Tim Beylemans, for your outstanding website! Tim's Spider Corner is an educational site for all spider fans that addresses the conservation of nature. You will find bird eating spider information, as well as an assortment of pictures, handling tips, resource links, a spider knowledge quiz, and the complete anatomy of a bird eating spider.
2005-01-09, awarded the "Humanity Award 2005" by the The Rose Awards:
"We are very proud for being granted this distinction that it is given out to... Webmasters/webmistresses who give back of themselves to the worldwide Net community, offering their talents, their skills, their web sites, as resource points for other people who are interested in bettering themselves and their own sites ... These special people are a great asset to the World Community because they offer their advice and expertise to all who seek it, and everyday, they are making the Internet a better place to be!...". More info about this award is available at our "Honors Granted" section.
2004-10-20, listed at W3 Compliant Sites
Carlos Simoes is now a "W3 Compliant Sites Member". W3 Compliant Sites is a collection of web sites that were created by designers that conform with the W3C standards. This forum provides the opportunity for them to display their work and ideas in a community that shares common interests.
2004-10-13, listed at net-guide.co.uk
The CPSnet Web Awards are now listed at net-guide.co.uk with an accessibility rating of "excellent". This directory aims to promote accessible sites and gives an accessibility rating for the websites returned for any query entered. Similarly, the directory entries also carry an accessibility rating.
2004-06-07, rated 5 by WebsAwards
A special panel of external judges, convened to assess the programs owned by WebsAwards' Staff members, has rated the CPSnet Web Awards as a WebsAwards level 5 program.
2004-05-04, rated 3 by Awardia
The Awardia Index has rated the CPSnet Web Awards as a level 3 (in 4 possible, where the fourth level is designated "Corona").
2004-04-01, rated 4 by EAI:
The Euro Award Index reinstated this award program at "Level 4" (in 5 possible).
2004-03-23, joined WSG:
We have joined the Web Standards Group (WSG). The Web Standards Group is for web developers/designers who are interested in web standards, CSS and (X)HTML and related topics.
2004-03-15, web site redesigned:
The CPSnet Web Awards have now a brand new website, fully compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict, "made with CSS" and WCAG-WAI Level AAA. Thank you to Webmates, of which we are proud members, for all the help and for the inspiration!
2004-01-15, announced the Best Site of Year 2003:
Announced back in 15/January 2004: "Explore Mars Now". In this outstanding website, visitors can walk through a Mars habitat simulation learning about science and technology as they explore. There are over 100 photo-realistic 3-D images of a near term Mars Habitat concept that are "brought to life" in Macromedia Flash.
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Content Criteria

Created 2003-01-30. Reviewed 2005-04-25: Added clarifications and requisites for children' sites; Reworded the item in our Privacy Policy regarding "Children Privacy Protection".

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Below you will find the questions our evaluators will make when evaluating the content of a web site.

  1. Theme and purpose
  2. Content
  3. Authority and credibility
  4. Delivery
  5. Maintenance

Theme and purpose

  • Does the site have a clearly identified theme? Is this theme educational, scientific or, generally speaking, does the site contributes accurate, relevant and useful information to a wide community?
  • Does the site have a clearly stated purpose?
  • Does it fulfil this purpose?
  • The content and design reflects the purpose of the web site and helps accomplishing it?
  • Are all external links present closely related to the site's purpose and theme(s)?

Content.

Content is the key here, as the content of a site either makes it worthy of public appraisal or not.

  • What is the nature of the content? Is it relevant? We will consider "relevant content" only that of informational, educational and/or scientific nature, of global scope, and presenting or not an entertainment component.
  • If advisable, is the content rated by a Content Rating organization? Ensure that if the ICRA or SafeSurf label is present, it reflects accurately the content.
  • Is the content appropriate for the intended audience in terms of familiarity and of terminology?
  • Is the content accurate (as far as can be determined by our evaluation panel)? Be sure that the sources for any non-original information are listed so that it can be verified in the original source.
  • If material that is protected by copyright is used, is the name of the copyright holder given?
  • Is there any material of "unknown origin" available in the website? Avoid "fair-use" and respect the Geneva's Convention and your national laws regarding intellectual property and copyright protection.
  • Is the content objective (as far as can be determined by our evaluation panel)? If there are any personal biases in the information, are they noted at the site? If there is any advertising on the page, it should be clearly differentiated from the informational content.
  • Is the content available in more than one language?
  • Is the content appropriate for the intended purpose in terms of quantity, quality and interactivity, i.e. is the content sufficient to meet user needs and expectations?
  • Interactive features:
    • Are there any message boards, download areas and /or articles and tutorials?
    • If the site provides a substantial amount of information, is there a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section?
    • Are site's content updates easy to track, for instance, by providing RSS feeds or free newsletters?

Authority and Credibility.

It is advisable to be clear what individual and/or organization is ultimately responsible for the content of the website. The keyword here is "trustworthy".

  • Who is the author and ultimate responsible for the site's content?
  • What is the authority of the author? The individual/organization responsible for the page indicates his/her qualifications or professional standing of the organization for writing on this theme?
  • Can the legitimacy of qualifications referred above be easily verified?
  • Is it possible to contact the individual/organization responsible for the page? The author, owner and webmaster must be easily contacted (for websites selling goods or services, it should be posted a phone number or a postal address to contact for more information).
  • If it is a person, is he or she well-known and/or may be considered credible in the subject field? If it is an institution, is it known for providing accurate information in the field?
  • Is there a disclaimer present and clearly visible whenever the author's credentials and/or qualifications are not appropriate or good enough to ensure the accuracy of the content?
  • Is the site personal and has no commercial purpose or owned by a not-for-profit or educational institution or association (most NGO will fit in this category)?
  • Is the site hosted by a third-party(e.g. AOL, Geocities)? Does the site's domain name matches its theme, name of the owner or company and is it easy to remember and type?
  • Are privacy and safety issues correctly addressed? Does the site have a privacy policy available whenever personal information about the visitor is collected?
  • Does the site design and delivery adds value to the site's credibility?

Delivery.

Is the content delivered in an appropriate way for the intended audience? From a general usability standpoint, we will evaluate the following items:

  • Is the access to all the content in the website free of charges and not requiring prior registration and/or login?
  • Is it well-written? Is it easy to read? Is it free of typographical, spelling and/or grammatical errors?
  • Is it fast? Visitors usually do not like to wait for a long multimedia presentation to load. If you have to use video clips or other similar methods, it is advisable that you place the relevant information into plain flat HTML and then make the presentation a secondary link from that page.
  • Are there interactive features and are these features clearly explained?
  • Is it easy to locate specific information and content? It is advisable that a website with a considerable amount of information has a search function available.
  • Are the skills required to use the site's features appropriate for its intended audience?
  • Is it intuitive? Visitors are not, most of the times, inclined to learn a new navigation or interaction system. They just want to get at the information they are looking for. So one should design delivery methods that are intuitive.

Maintenance.

  • Is the site always available? Consider changing service provider if your current one does not ensure you a minimum 99.9% up-time and/or frequent unjustified service interruptions exceeds 40 minutes per month.
  • Is the content up to date? Are there dates posted indicating when the page was written or when the page was last updated?
  • If it is an archive site, is the source of the information clearly stated? Are all internal links working?
  • If the site is a meta-site, does it have any broken external links? Ensure that that links are correct and that original content of a link has not been replaced by other (sometimes objectionable) material or that the link is not being redirected to any other (sometimes objectionable) location.
  • Is it complete? Ensure that there are no "under-construction" pages or sections.
  • Are there any broken links to internal and external pages? Are all images available and correctly displayed?
  • Are the interaction elements (if present) in the website (feedback forms, contact links, guestbooks, forum scripts) working as intended and always available?

Site's content guidelines are based on the article by Thomas Myer, titled "Web content usability".

See in the "Content Scoring" how this review translates into a score.