Identifying and Prioritizing of the Effective Factors on Brand Building of Virtual Education at the University of Isfahan

The main purpose of the study was to identify and prioritize the effective factors on Brand Buildingof virtual education at the University of Isfahan. In terms of purpose it was an applied study, and in terms of the nature of the method it was exploratory mixed. The population of the study was all virtual students in three majors of library and information science, executive management and MBA at the University of Isfahan in 2014-2015 academic year. 188 students were chosen as the sample through random sampling method based on Morgan and Krejcie’s table. Using sources as libraries, internet and experts’ opinion, branding features of universities were extracted and used to make a questionnaire that was used for data collection. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. After identifying and classifying components of branding of the virtual education as four main categories: Human, Strategy, Infrastructure and Process, all items for each component were investigated and prioritized. The results showed that intuition cost in the strategy component, easy access to a university portal in the infrastructure component, appointing expertise employees in the human component, and finally financial support for students in the process dimension were the most important factors for branding in virtual education at the University of Isfahan.