A Review of Sexual Assault Information on College Web Sites

This article presents a comprehensive review of information available on campus Web sites at all four-year colleges and universities in New Jersey. This study used a descriptive, content analysis methodology with a sample that consisted of 28 college and university Web pages. To evaluate the Web sites, ecological approaches were rated with a checklist created to document the presence and extent of information about sexual assault, including five key areas: (1) general information about sexual assault, (2) the availability of services for students, (3) information about how to report an incident of sexual assault, (4) whether there was a department exclusively dedicated to the school's response to sexual assault, and (5) information about the existence of a policy prohibiting sexual assault on campus. Almost all of the schools provided policies and information about services for students. However, the comprehensiveness of the information and the ease of finding it varied greatly by campus. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for social workers and those responding to survivors of sexual assault on a college campus.