INTRODUCTION

Quality education is cited as the key competitive weapon among countries (Feigenbaum, 1994). Colleges and universities have identified high-quality education as their primary role. These institutions look continuously for ways to improve their service quality and enhance student learning (Rovai, 2003). They are increasingly being held accountable for their quality of service by governments and citizens (Chua & Lam, 2007).

Educational institutions have been aware of the positive impact of education on the welfare of society and have been looking for ways to improve the educational experience of their students. There is also increasing levels of expectation by citizens for the quality of education these institutions provide. Educational institutes consider students customers who must not only be satisfied with the quality of their education, but also should become contributing members of society (Ardalan, Rhiel, & Wermus, 2012).

Many colleges and universities are using technologies to expand their reach and make their programs available to students anywhere and whenever students are ready to learn (Oblinger, Barone, & Hawkins, 2001). Educational institutions want to attract and retain students in their programs to help increase the education level of their society. Demand for online degree programs has been steadily growing (Kearsley, 2000; MacKinnon & Ayleward, 1999; Presby, 2001; Simonson et. al., 2003) as students enjoy online schedule flexibility and its anytime and anywhere availabilities. Place-bound students can have access to a range of programs offered by a variety of universities in a gamut of geographical locations via online programs.

While in most cases the course and program content of a face-to-face delivery is similar to an online version of the same course and program, the delivery contexts of these two modes can be quite different. Identifying and controlling factors that affect the quality of online programs are recent challenges that colleges and universities have been trying to become more knowledgeable about (Kaye, 2011).

Diminishing state and federal financial support increases the challenge which higher education is facing at the present time (Rice & Taylor, 2003). Academic administrators have the daunting, yet satisfying task of selecting the right mix of educational technologies, innovative approaches for recruiting students, and creative strategies for improving student retention. This selection process is taking place in an environment highly constrained by the available funds.

The steady increase of the service sector's contribution to the GDP of industrial nations has increased competition in this sector of the economies of these countries. Improving service quality is one approach for gaining competitive advantage. Managers and academic researchers have directed more effort in becoming knowledgeable about the concepts and approaches of quality in a variety of services (Ardalan, Rhiel, & Wermus, 2012).

A major accomplishment in this area is the identification of the five dimensions of service quality by which customers judge service (Parasuraman & Berry, 1985). The five dimensions are reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles. This approach can be used to determine customer satisfaction by comparing customer expectations with the actual service level a company provides to its customers. Parasuraman and Berry (1985) also developed SERVQUAL (Parasuraman & Berry, 1988) which is a survey instrument for measuring the five dimensions of service quality in retail organizations. They discussed the theoretical structure of the model and illustrated its validity by applying it to four independent samples. Although SERVQUAL is a very reliable instrument, researchers warn that some external factors such as culture may influence the analysis and results derived from the use of this tool (Donthu & Yoo, 1998).

The purpose of this study is to identify factors that provide quality service to online programs, and categorize them using Parasuraman and Berry's Five Dimensions of Quality Service (SERVQUAL) as defined by Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons (2008). Much has been written about factors that define quality assurance of online programs and we have provided documentation of this in our literature review. However, their approach is fragmented, and their results are, to a large extent inconsistent. Many publications (see Shelton, 2011) that use words like benchmarking, actions, best practices, and pillars in their titles list factors that fit into the five service dimensions. We will present them in the "Quality Service Factors" section of the paper. We believe it will be of value to universities and researchers to have a structure for the services that are needed for their online programs. The structure helps communication among university administrators, and improves consistency in the outcome of future research

In addition to listing and providing a structure for factors that define service for online programs, we will describe how they fit into the online environment. We hope that this will provide universities with a better understanding of the services that are needed to enhance the quality assurance of their online programs. This is important information within universities where service is provided at many levels and where service may vary depending on who is administering it. Also, it will provide the opportunity for different universities to have a structure that they can use in providing service to their online students.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The first part of this section presents research that deployed SERVQUAL for analysis of higher education service quality offered by the institution as a whole and its specific service unit. LeBlanc and Nguyen (1997) used SERVQUAL to determine factors that affect service quality in higher education institutes. They show that the most important factors, in the order of importance, are the reputation of the institution, the quality of its administrative personnel, the quality of its faculty, the quality of its curriculum, the responsiveness of its personnel, the physical attributes of the university, and the accessibility of university resources to students.

Several studies have used SERVQUAL to determine the factors that customers consider to be important in a service setting and to measure customer satisfaction with the service relative to these factors. For example, Brysland and Curry (2001) applied SERVQUAL to several areas of public service to measure the discrepancy between citizens' expectations and the level of service they receive. They showed the high strategic and operational value of SERVQUAL for improving service.

While service quality has been relatively well published, the efforts in improving service quality in online programs offered by higher education institutions do not appear to be as extensively documented. In addition, while SERVQUAL has been established as a standard tool for analysis and improvement of service operations, its deployment for analysis and improvement of online programs has not been documented yet. While most of the articles on the quality of service in face-to-face programs use SERVQUAL, the authors search of the current literature on the quality of service in online programs did not find articles that used SERVQUAL and its five dimensions to categorize online service.

In a comparative study of factors that influence quality of education in different countries Ford et al. (1999) studied universities in New Zealand and a major university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States and noted that academic reputation, career opportunities, program issues, physical aspects, and the location of the institution were the most important factors.

Tan and Kek (2004) deployed their modified version of SERVQUAL and at two universities in Singapore to identify those factors that students felt were important for delivery of high quality service. They noted that there were no differences between university groups, such as freshman vs. sophomores, with respect to their quality assessments.

Mostafa (2006) applied SERVQUAL to analyze the effect of several factors on the quality of service in higher education in Egypt. His analysis showed that factors such as instilling confidence in students; having visually appealing facilities; having modern equipment; having visually appealing materials such as handouts and syllabi; having faculty and staff that do what they promise, on time; having faculty and staff who are always willing to help students; providing a safe environment; and having convenient class times and office hours were important in this regards. He also concluded that some of the characteristics of academic staff and professors such as never being too busy to respond to students' requests; giving students personal and individual attention; showing a sincere interest in solving a student's problems; performing services right the first time; keeping error-free records; giving prompt service to students; and understanding the specific needs of their students had low priority.

Faganel (2010) conducted a two-step study in which he used SERVQUAL in a higher education setting to analyze feedback from several focus groups. Then he used the feedback to develop a survey. The analysis of survey data showed that staff believed that timely information about the time and place of services, the willingness to help students, the knowledge to answer student questions, and the appearance of faculty and buildings were the important factors that defined quality service. However, students thought that timely and regular information about time and place of services, knowledgeable employees to answer student questions, and the appearance of faculty members and university buildings were the most important factors.

Research in service quality of a service unit in a higher education institution is sparse. The authors found only one published article in this area that used SERVQUAL. The information technology unit of a higher education institution in UK was considered in that study. Smith et al. (2007) concluded that the staff indicated that the most important quality-service factors are responsiveness, assurance, and empathy, while students perceive quality factors to be reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles.

The literature on the quality of offering online higher education includes research related to factors that affect the quality of an online course and research related to factors that are important for the quality of online programs offered by an institution. Herman and Banister (2007) compare the student performance and cost of delivering a course in face-to-face with its online versions. Both courses had the same content. The online version included an extensive array of interaction exercises between student and faculty and student and student. While learning was similar in both delivery modes the delivery cost was reduced by transitioning to the online delivery mode and reducing the number sections offered at different times and different locations. The factors cited as highly important in the development of the online version of the course are clear expectation and instructions, weekly patterns of assignments and activities, quality materials including text, online readings, multimedia, and weekly small group discussion forums.

An important factor cited in the literature for development and delivery of a successful online course is learning from reflections by students and faculty while developing and delivering the online course, (Deubel, 2003). Quality factors that resulted from the analysis of the reflections provided by students and faculty Deubel (2003), and were also supported by other researchers included content (Valentine, 2002) and the instruction delivery system (Phipps & Merisotis, 2000; Miller, Rainer, & Corley, 2003; Moloney & Tello, 2003).

Some of the definitions of quality of online programs include: quality is accreditation, quality is an effective and efficient course development process, and quality is effective pedagogy (Benson, 2003). Lee and Dziuban (2002) state the overall success of an online program depends on the quality of the evaluation systems deployed in the program. Shelton and Saltsman (2004) suggest that indicators of quality are academic outcomes, retention rate, and appropriate faculty and student support. Husman and Miller (2001) believe that administrators perceive quality of online programs depends on the performance of faculty. Several studies conclude that successful online programs have high levels of interactions among students and student and faculty (Lorenzo & Moore, 2002).

In a case study of an institution's quality control process for developing online courses in online programs, Heaton, Pauley, and Childress (2002) discuss three domains of online course development, delivery, and evaluation. They discuss the need for a course approval process, single delivery platform, availability of library resources, faculty and student surveys, and student performance assessment. Britto, Ford, and Wise (2013) present their study of three institutions of different sizes and different cultures and state that all three institutions follow the same approach for ensuring high quality online programs--the goals of quality assurance are aligned with the institutions' strategic plan, there is an institution-wide quality improvement program, they had centralized units for support of online programs, and they faced similar challenges in improving the quality of online programs.

The results of comparative analysis of online education quality assurance standards reported by Southard and Mooney (2015), and a review of paradigms for evaluating the quality of online programs presented by Shelton (2011) are quite different. The results of comparing the quality standards show that 44 percent of standards consider course design to be an important factor while only 11 percent consider course delivery as an important factor, while the results of the review of paradigms for evaluating the quality of online programs show that ten out of the 13 paradigms reviewed considered the institutional commitment, support, and leadership as the most important factor in determining the quality of an institution's online programs. Other research recommend further research in this area to establish a more universal standard for evaluation and improvement of quality of online programs (Dill, 2000; Rice & Taylor, 2003; Meyer, 2002).

DIMENSIONS AND DEFINITION OF SERVICE QUALITY

Table I contains definitions of Parasuraman's Five Dimensions of Quality Service as defined by Fitzsimmons and Fitzimmons (2008). Based on these five dimensions, the authors of this study define and categorize factors that provide quality service to university online programs. The factors are derived from the literature review of the literature and from our extensive experience as university professors. The three faculty members each have more than 30 years of experience at the university level, including serving as an associate dean, a department chair, and a disciple coordinator. In addition, two of the faculty members have extensive experience in creating online programs and in creating and teaching online courses.

The authors of this study have categorized the five dimensions of Quality Service according to Parasuraman and Berry (1985) and presented them in Figure 1, Appendix I. Through the use of this information, administrators who are at the program level will better be able to provide the needed service for a successful online program.

QUALITY SERVICE FACTORS

The developed factors are aimed at providing services to students who are in online degree programs. This study shows how these services impact students rather than services that provide support for faculty. Below are the categorization and discussion of the factors.

Reliability Factors

Catalog--Curriculum was identified by LeBlanc and Nguyen (1997) as a service item at the university level. University catalogs for online programs should provide students with a guideline for identifying their online curriculum, including both the courses in the program and the course structure of the degree. Other issues related to completing the online program should be addressed in the catalog as well. It is of great importance that once a program is listed in the catalog, that the university follows through with providing students the courses to complete the degree requirements, even if the program is being phased out.

Course Schedule--Scheduling of courses must be such that the students can finish their programs in a timely manner. Students should not have to wait extended periods of time to take a course in their program of study. A "long range" schedule should be developed for a few years ahead so that students will be able to develop their degree plans and graduate in a timely manner.

Advising--WCET (2001) identified advising as an important consideration in their article on best practices for electronically transmitted programs and Chaney, et el (2009) listed advising for online programs as an indicator of quality in online programs. We find that advising for online programs should be provided entirely online. This should include both face to face and face to document interchange. It

may be that just using an application like Face Time will not provide the medium for effective advising. Perhaps an application such as Adobe Connect where extensive face and document interaction can occur would be more effective.

Financial Aid--IHEP (2000) lists access to financial aid as a service for distance education and Chaney, et el (2009) states the financial assistance is important for the quality of online programs. In our service categories, we believe that Financial Aid refers to having online face to face and face to document individualized access. All documentation should be available so that they can be filled out online. Presentations should be available using video and other relevant materials.

Instructor--Instructors in online courses must possess special communication skills. The challenge of working with students online is substantial and the instructor must be in-tune with the needs that online students have. The instructor must have, in addition to knowledge about the subject matter, an in-depth understanding of the online system.

Presentation Platform--Frydenberg (2002) identified course delivery as an important item the the quality of online education. To create quality online programs we believe that each university should have a course presentation platform to present the online material which will allow the students to easily navigate and utilize the tools in the course. This platform should minimize student time spent and frustration in finding materials and doing all exercises. All courses should be presented using this platform in order to minimize student confusion.

Testing System--A testing system that will allow the testing process to run smoothly and efficiently is needed. This includes such things as distributing and proctoring exams. This could include exams administered online or exams administered at sites.

Feedback Forum--The online platform should provide a mechanism for students to give the professor feedback about the course on a regular basis throughout a semester.

Remote Sites--Refers to having physical sites strategically located near the remote, larger target-populations of the program to provide support and testing locations.

Responsiveness Factors

Course Registration--WCET (2001) list registration as one of the best practices considerations for online programs. The authors believe that the registration process should provide easy access for students who are at a distance. Care must be taken to ensure that the distance students are registered prior to campus students having access to the online courses. Other considerations should be given to online students who are at a distance to ensure that unexpected issues do not delay graduation because of a block on registration or similar circumstance. Also, there may be students who are local to the university who choose to do their program online. These students should have the early opportunity to register for the online class with the same classification as the distance students.

Learning Aids--WCET (2001) lists tutoring as an important "Best Practices" activity for electronic programs and Lee and Dziuban (2002) support live tutorials for quality assurance. In this article we believe that learning aids such as tutorials are essential for some students. In the online environment it is very challenging to provide these services. However, face to face, individual tutoring should be available and conducted through online communication systems such as Adobe Connect. Tutorials should be offered through online videos or book related programs or other available online programs.

Student Needs--Students have many needs during the semester such as making up exams, technical problems that need to be resolved, and unforeseen family and obligatory issues. These all seem to be magnified when the classes are online. Faculty should be sensitive to these issues and be open to things like making deadlines for submitting assignments and taking exams adjustable when there are technical and other similar issues. For online courses, technical staff should be available in real time and instructor response to student issues should be in a timely manner.

Technical Help--Technical help is found in many documents concerning online education, see WCET (2001), Frydenberg (2002), and Osika (2004) for a few. Although we mentioned technical help in the "Student Needs" factor, it is reiterated here that students should have 24 hour access to online and telephone services to assist them with technical problems associated with online issues. Also, students should have quick access to instructors when technical issues arise with homework or other issues that the instructor needs to handle.

Instructor Access--Mostafa (2006) states that office-hours should be scheduled by faculty members to meet student needs. Many writings on online education list student to professor interaction as an important factor (see WCET, 2001 & Frydenberg, 2002) for examples. In the online environment we suggest frequent online office hours (suggestion: office hours "on demand") through an online system such as Adobe Connect. In addition the faculty member should provide a telephone contact number, fast response to student emails, and frequent checks and responses to student's questions on discussion boards or other mediums.

Staff--Faganel (2010) noted that knowledgeable staff members are important in providing university serve to students. For online programs, staff members who specialize in online programs should be available via phone and email to assist students with logistic and technical online issues.

Assurance Factors

Safety--Mostafa (2006) identified safety as an important student issue at the university level. With online courses students must feel safe that the university is protecting them against any form of cyber-attack. Students must be assured that their identity and technical equipment is protected through the university system.

Program Standards--The integrity of university programs should be maintained when they are offered online. This includes such things as maintaining accreditation, maintaining the same level of rigor as the traditional programs, and establishing a program quality that students and employers will embrace.

Course Development--IHEP (2000) list course development as an important component for success in online learning and Chaney, et el (2009) list it as an indicator of quality. We believe that the university should have faculty work with online specialist to create the content of the course and put it online. The university should develop standards that will insure that courses are of the same high quality as their face to face counterparts.

Instructor Credentials--WCET (2001) points out the importance of academic qualifications for electronically delivered programs. This leads to the conjecture that universities should carefully select qualified instructors for online courses. Not only should the instructors have the Knowledge base to teach the course, but should have knowledge of the delivery system so that student confusion in using the system can be alleviated. It is suggested that the instructor who created the course should teach the course.

Online Information--Khan (2001) listed support materials for online programs as an important dimension. This supports having all information that the students need to access to be successful in the course, online. This includes such things as how to access and use the presentation platform, how to determine if their computer is appropriate to handle the course, how to access and use the testing system, and all such information.

Online Support--Khan (2001) listed online support as an important dimension for online learning. We believe that the university should have personnel who are online experts available by phone and online communication systems to assist students with any technical and or logistic problems that may occur.

Empathy Factors

Instructor Interaction--Frydenberg (2002) stated that instructor/student interaction was important in online high-quality programs. We believe that not only should there be responses to reasonable student questions or concerns either through email or through an online communication system, but it must be done quickly for online courses. It is suggested that the Instructors have a smart phone or other transportable device that supports emails and other communication systems to provide immediate response to students.

Instructor Compassion--This is a very important for online classes where student frustration levels are heightened when learning both the system for presenting the course and the course material. The lack of a physical presence between the student and faculty member creates a very challenging learning environment for many students. Instructors should respond quickly and with compassion as the students work their way through the course. It is important for instructors to create a connection with the students by projecting friendly and respectful interchanges.

Tangibles Factors

Labs--Computer labs should be online and accessible 24 hours a day. For courses that require physical labs, arrangement must be made to provide those at strategically placed locations. In cases where this is not possible, virtual labs should be created to provide a similar learning opportunity as physical labs.

Course Materials--Frydenberg (2002) list instructional design and course development as important factors in high-quality programs. We believe that the course materials should be professionally developed for the online environment. Mostafa (2006) highlighted the importance of attractive course materials. This becomes extremely important in an online environment where students interest in the material is a function of the course materials. They must be very clear and straightforward to maximize student understanding while being interesting and attractive to draw the student's interest.

Library--WCET(2001), Frydenberg (2002), and Lee and Dziuban (2002) all list library access as an important component of online programs. Library Materials should be online and accessible 24 hours a day. State of the art search engines should be provided to allow the online student to find library materials that are needed to complete a course successfully.

Online Access--Frydenberg (2002) lists support materials as pertinent to high-quality online programs. Online access refers to having online web sites, material, and information that are professionally developed for online programs. These should be appeasing to the eye, should be easy to access, and should draw students to the material. Discussion boards and other collaboration tools should be used to create interaction among the students and between the faculty member and the students to provide Feedback.

FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

With the insurgence of online education into our traditional universities, the struggle to fund these programs becomes an issue. Although online education does not require the costly need for physical classrooms, there are costs that traditional programs do not have. Some of these include the creation of the courses, staff to provide the needed services to the distance students, and staff to maintain the online system.

Dwindling state support for universities has created a long term financial crisis for universities to fund their diverse programs. Traditional universities who add online programs, therefore, must find ways to support these programs. The authors have found the demand for online courses to be exceptional within our university. In some cases this is a result of new, distance students taking our online classes, but in other cases it is the results of our traditional students choosing to take the online classes rather than the traditional, face-to-face classes. Although this puts a strain on the online budget, it creates an opportunity.

It was found that students are willing to pay more to take courses online. This demand allows us to enhance the funding of online programs by attaching a student surcharge to each course. The authors suggest that a major source of funds for online programs in traditional universities is through student surcharges for online courses. The task each university has is to determine the amount of the surcharge students are willing to pay to take an online course.

CONCLUSION

Service to students in online programs should be specialized to meet the needs created by the online environment. This may take more effort and compassion than it takes to provide the same service to students in traditional programs. These services can be funded by adding a surcharge per student to each online course. Figure 1 provides a summary of the services that online students need based on Parasuraman and Parasuraman's (1985) five dimensions of quality service.

Appendix I

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Steve Rhiel is an Associate Professor and former Chair of IT/Decisions Sciences in the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Statistics from the University of Northern Colorado. He has published articles in Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, Communications in Statistics-Simulation and Computation, Industrial Relations, Journal of Statistics Education, Psychological Reports, Corporate Reputation Review, and the International Journal of Education Research.

Ali Ardalan is full professor and former Associate Dean of the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University He earned his PhD in Business Administration from the University of Arizona in 1983. He has published in Production and Operations Management, Decision Sciences, European Journal of Operational Research, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management, Engineering Economist, Industrial Management and Data Systems, and Computers and Operations Research.

Marek Wermus is an Associate Professor and Discipline Coordinator of IT/Decisions Sciences at the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Technical University of Wroclaw, Poland. He has published articles in Interfaces, Production and Inventory Management Journal, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, and Journal for East European Management Studies.

Table I

Parasuraman's Five Dimensions of Quality Service

Dimension        Definition (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2008)

Reliability      The ability to perform the promised service both
                 dependably and accurately. Reliable service
                 performance is a customer expectation and means that
                 the service is accomplished on time, in the same
                 manner, and without errors every time.

Responsiveness   The willingness to help customers and provide prompt
                 service, ability to recover quickly and with
                 professionalism if a service failure occurs.

Assurance        The knowledge and courtesy of employees as well as
                 their ability to convey trust and confidence,
                 competence to perform the service, politeness and
                 respect for the customer, effective communication
                 with the customer, and the general attitude that the
                 server has the customer's best interest at heart.

Empathy          the provision of caring, individualized attention to
                 customers, approachability, sensitivity, and effort
                 to understand the customer's needs.

Tangibles        The appearance of physical facilities, equipment,
                 personnel, and communication materials such as
                 brochures or letters.