Quality Matters: A National Benchmark for Online Course Design

Quality Matters (QM) is a faculty-centered, peer review process that is designed to certify the quality of online and blended courses. The Quality Matters process evaluates the instructional design of online courses; it does not evaluate course content or the faculty delivery content. The Quality Matters standards, which are supported by best practices and research literature that is updated with every new rubric release, assure that the online components of these courses promote learner engagement and provide students with all the tools and information they need to be successful learners.

Who is using QM? – Over 400 institutions user QM including nearly all higher education institutions in Ohio (http://www.qmprogram.org/qmresources/subscriptions/state.cfm)

What is the Rubric? – QM uses a set of 8 general standards and 41 specific standards to evaluate the design of online and hybrid courses (http://qmprogram.org/rubric)

Links to Supporting Research – The “Research In Support of QM Rubric Standards” is available at http://www.qmprogram.org/latest-research-support-rubric-standards. Research on the Impact of Quality Matters Course Review Process by R. Legon and J. Runyon can be found at http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/07_5284.pdf .

For more information regarding Quality Matters, please contact Timothy Lombardo at x5405 or 419.289.5405.