Quality Matters comes to Maricopa Community Colleges

Yesterday, I attended the overview session of Quality Matters (QM) with Dr. Ron Legon, Executive Director of QM and although I already knew something about the program, I was very pleased for its potential for Maricopa students and faculty members.

MCLI has secured a subscription for its one-year pilot of QM to begin in 08-09. Today 35 Maricopa peer reviewers will be trained to begin reviewing courses next year.

So... a bit about QM:

Quality Matters came out of a FIPSE grant that was meant to support adult learners and distributed/distance learning and originally had these 4 goals:

1. provide statewide leadership in distance learning
2. maintain a web gateway for online higher education in Maryland
   
3. collaborate on faculty training
   
4. facilitate online course and program sharing

Over 700 faculty members, 158 institutions and 28 states participate in QM (they are non-profit).

The QM toolset and processes include

1. faculty-driven, peer-review process
2. collaborative process among faculty peers
3. commitment to continuous quality improvement
4. based on national standards of best practice, the research literature, and instruction design principles
5. designed to promote student learning
   

Overall, QM is designed to support student retention and satisfaction in online and hybrid courses. Reviewed courses don't have to be perfect, but QM aims at better than just "good enough".

Here you can read about the underlying principles of Quality Matters and how it aligns with accreditation standards and is supported by the research literature.

The review team takes the perspective of a student (as a novice to the course) and asks basic questions to assess quality. QM is NOT about the individual instructor, about faculty evaluation, or about win/lose pass/fail regarding course review.

The rubric contains 8 key areas of course quality, 40 specific review standards including 14 essential standards, and detailed annotations and examples of good practice for all 40 standards.


The 8 key areas of course quality include

1. course overview and introduction
   
2. learning objectives
3. assessment and measurement
4. resources and materials
5. learner interaction
   
6. course technology
   
7. learner support
8. ADA compliance
   

Areas 2-6 must be aligned. Throughout the review, their is a focus on improvement and support of instructor-student interaction, content-student interaction, and student-student interaction.

We are hopeful and excited about bringing QM to Maricopa (first in Arizona--who says we don't lead). Stay tuned for more...