Assessment of the quality of digital services provided by an e-learning platform focused on sustainability issues

Abstract

Paper aims: The aim was to adapt and apply a SERVQUAL scale to measure the perceived service quality of an e-learning platform provided by the United Nations for Environment Programme (UNEP) focused on sustainability issues. Originality: There is a scarce number of publications using the SERVQUAL for digital services evaluation. This study contributes to filling this gap, generating new insights for the service quality literature by proposing an adaptation of the SERVQUAL scale for online sustainability courses. Research method: The SERVQUAL was carried out with undergraduate and post-graduate students enrolled at a Brazilian higher education institution. A set of 21 questions was set up to evaluate the perceived service quality of the students before/after finishing the online course “Introduction to Life Cycle Thinking (LCT)” provided by UNEP. Main findings: The results showed that the most important features were related to the empathy, assurance and tangibility quality dimensions with emphasis on the high quality of addressing the user doubts and the audio and video resources that helped students in the learning process. In conclusion, the perceived quality was higher than the expectations for many of the SERVQUAL dimensions. Implications for theory and practice: Finally, the step-by-step methodological approach used by this paper should be adopted by other e-learning platforms to investigate quality and service management aspects. Empathy, assurance and tangibility may be seen as key components in the service quality management of e-learning platforms.