Online Information Satisfaction: A Rasch Model Measurement of Information Management Experience within the Malaysian Agricultural Extension Services

Agriculture has recently turned to be the prime sector with special emphasis given by the Malaysian Government in their recent review of the Outline Planning Perspective 3 for the period 2000-2015. The focus of economic generator has now shifted from pure manufacturing to agro-industrial based. As such, the Ministry of Agriculture, Malaysia has taken task to develop various policies to drive people into agriculture. Research agencies have been consolidated and revitalized to carry out breakthrough research in diverse fields and provide new knowledge in obtaining optimal benefit from the soil and crops. This information is crucial to farmers and those interested in practicing agriculture. Web portals have been deployed as one of the key media used in sharing agricultural information. The Department of Agriculture (DOA) has developed a website where research information can be disseminated effectively to the respective agricultural officers and technicians in the field at specific locality. They in turn are responsible in sharing this information to the farmers and transform it into usable knowledge. They are the end users who bridge the dissemination of knowledge from the research laboratories to the farmers at the point of use. The portal is also intended for the agricultural officers to get information on policies and activities from the ministry and other relevant agencies. Hence, there is a need to assess how far does this information reach the target, and how useful are the web portals in providing the relevant and meaningful information to the end users and farmers in the field. Thus, this study is to establish the customer satisfaction level on the information system provided by the DOA using Rasch measurement and analysis model. The concept of measurement dealing with ordinal data is outlined and the quantitative outcomes thereof described. Rasch offers easier analysis and reporting by means of Ordered Matrix Map and uni-dimensional measurement beyond this pu- rpose.