This document discusses Quality Matters (QM), a non-profit organization dedicated to quality assurance in online education. QM provides a peer review process and rubric to certify the quality of online and blended courses. It outlines the institution's existing course design process and how it will now incorporate the QM rubric standards. Faculty and staff can create QM accounts to access the annotated rubric for self-review or professional development. The institution has a basic QM subscription and will use the rubric for internal reviews but not official QM certification of courses.

1. Quality Matters: Research-
based Course Design
Kathleen Stone
Director of Curriculum and Instructional Design
Quality Matters Coordinator

2. What is Quality Matters (QM)?
• A non-profit organization dedicated to quality assurance
in online education.
• A peer review process that is designed to certify the
quality of online and blended courses.
• The QM rubric is a set of standards that can be used to
review the design of courses.
• To receive the QM recognition a course must go through
the official QM process

3. Official QM Review
• QM-Managed reviews
• Team of three reviewers
• The QM Rubric must be used unmodified
• Must use the online review system
• Follows a strict process
• Application, course worksheet, various forms and reports, pre
and post review conferences, timeline

4. Official QM Review
• Subscriber-managed reviews
• Must follow the same process as a QM managed review
• The administrative and financial portions are managed by the
QM Coordinator at the institution

5. Internal Review
• Unofficial course reviews managed by the institution
• Does not need to follow the same process as an official review
• Flexible and adaptable to the needs of the institution
• Reviewers do not need to be certified by QM
• It is highly recommended that anyone using the rubric take
the “Applying the QM Rubric” workshop
• Courses reviewed in this way are not eligible for QM
recognition

6. QM Subscription Options
• Basic Subscription
• All faculty and staff can create a MyQM account
• Provides access to the rubric
• Provides discounts on professional development
• Ability to conduct internal unofficial reviews
• Discounts on formal QM managed reviews
• Full Subscription - all above plus
• Ability to conduct official subscriber-managed reviews
• License to facilitate the Applying the QM Rubric training

7. The QM Rubric
• Informed by best practices and literature reviews on online
course design
• Updated regularly to reflect new research
• There is an in-depth focus on alignment
• Most widely used set of standards for online and blended
course design at the college level
• Can be cited in self-studies and reaccreditation as part of the
quality standards that informs our instructional design
processes

8. The QM Rubric
• 8 general standards with 43 specific standards
1. Course Overview and Introduction
2. Learning Objectives (Competencies)
3. Assessment and Measurement
4. Instructional Materials
5. Course Activities and Learner Interaction
6. Course Technology
7. Learner Support
8. Accessibility and Usability
• Fully annotated

9. How are we using QM?
• We have a basic subscription
• We are not participating in official course reviews
• We are using the QM rubric as part of our existing internal
processes
• Many of the standards are addressed in our new course
template

10. What is the existing process?
• When a course is developed or undergoes a major revision it is
done so through a collaborative process
• Content expert (course developer), area coordinator (AC), and a
coordinator of curriculum and instructional design (CID)
• The CID uses a homegrown instructional design and
accessibility rubric to help guide their instructional design
work during the cycle

11. What is the existing process?
• Course developers and area coordinators can reference the
current rubric, but are not required to.
• The CID uses it to inform design discussions.
• When the course is complete, the CID completes the rubrics to
assess if the course is meeting best practices and to ensure it
is accessible for all students
• If there are still areas that could use improvement, they are
either addressed at that time or noted for future revision.

12. What has changed?
• CDL CIDs have completed the Applying the QM Rubric course
• The CIDs are replacing the current instructional design rubric
with the QM rubric
• The developer training course now references QM rubric
instead of our old one
• Alignment discussions
• The course template we use has been updated to incorporate
QM rubric standards
• The template fully covers 11 of the standards and provides clear
guidance for 17 others

13. As always….
• At the completion of the course revision or development, CIDs
will use the rubric to identify any areas that could still be
improved.
• Depending on the results of the review and the time left in the
revision/development cycle, faculty can decide if they want to
make any changes right away or during a future revision cycle.
• Continuous improvement

14. New Options
Self-review tool – online fully annotated version of the rubric
• Any faculty or staff member can sign up for a QM account and
have access to this tool to review their own course
• No one is required to use it – this is just a new option
Professional development
• Once you have an account you can take professional
development offered by QM at discounted rates
• Approach this as any other PD – you can self pay or go through
our regular ESC development fund processes

15. How do I….?
Create a QM account
Log in after I have an account
Use the self-review tool
You can also refer to the handout that is on the CDL conference
website.
This presentation and multimedia how-to resources will be
posted on our CID blog
http://commons.esc.edu/cdl-course-highlights/

16. Questions?