The problem of quality service assurance in a computer networking environment is addressed. In the absence of any direct, well-defined, quantitative measure of service quality and reliability, error collection and analysis is the only basis for service quality control. Therefore, mechanisms are described which facilitate reporting of operational errors, documentation of error corrections, and collection of system performance data. Since techniques for hardware quality control are well known, these mechanisms focus on collecting data which can be used to assess and control software quality. Finally, specific network facilities are described which support research in the area of software quality, and potential areas of new research using the network are identified. (Author)