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7/16/2009
QM will begin offering webinars with the following theme: "Using QM Outside the Box". For example, are you using QM in F2F classes? Integrating it with courses delivered through open-source software or social networking venues? Doing something else? If so, we want to hear about your ideas, challenges, and solutions! Send a one-page proposal that outlines the project, discusses the objectives, including what attendees will gain, and addresses the outcomes. Additional resources including PowerPoint slides, handouts, etc., can also be sent.
Use the following webinar guidelines to help you develop your proposal: 45 minute presentation, 10-15 minute Q&A, suggestions for polling questions and interactive activities.
If a proposal is accepted, the presenter will be offered a $300 stipend to be paid at the conclusion of the webinar. The proposal submission deadline is Monday, August 17.
6/29/2009
The Quality Matters Research Advisory and Academic Advisory Committees are pleased to announce funding for five research projects. The RFP generated an enthusiastic response with a total of twenty-six proposals submitted from sixteen states. Findings from the studies will be published in June 2010.
Projects awarded include:
Grant 1
Project Leader: Edward C. Bowen, PhD, Executive Dean, Dallas Tellecollege, TX
Project Title: QM Standard 8 Project
Grant 2
Project Leader: Veronica Diaz, PhD, Learning Technology Manager, Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction, Maricopa Community Colleges, Tempe, AZ
Project Title: Maricopa Quality Matters Program Review
Grant 3
Project Leader: Anna A. Hall, PhD, Associate Professor/Sociology, Delgado Community College, Metairie, LA
Project Title: Quality Matters Rubric as 'Teaching Presence': Application of Community of Inquiry Framework to Analysis of the QM Rubric's Effects of Student Learning
Grant 4
Project Leader: Evelyn Knowles, PhD, Coordinator of Program Quality Development, School for Online Learning, Park University, MO
Project Title: The Impact of Quality Matters Standards on Learning Experiences in Online Courses
Grant 5
Project Leader: Karen Sway, PhD, James J. Stukel, Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Illinois, Springfield
Project Title: Linking Course Design to Learning Processes Using the Quality Matters and Community of Inquiry
1/20/2009
Join Quality Matters in Portland! QM is hosting a hospitality suite following the Welcome Reception at the ITC eLearning Conference 2009 on Saturday, February 21, from 9:00 PM to midnight, at the Portland Hilton and Executive Towers. We invite you to stop by for light refreshments and an opportunity to meet with some of the QM team. 1/5/2009
Seems like the other day that I reflected on 2007 and now I’m here looking back on 2008. To say it’s been a year of transition is more than an understatement. Revolution might be a better way to describe the growth, change, and progress QM has experienced over the past twelve months. To summarize, here are a few highlights of 2008…
v Introduction of new subscriptions options, beginning April 2008, that included an Individual Subscription which proved to be very popular for institutions that were looking for an introduction to QM or were primarily interested in conducting internal reviews.
v Revised and improved QM Rubric 2008-2010 edition, fully implemented in August 2008.
v New training offerings that included ‘Applying the QM Rubric’ and its counterpart, ‘Peer Reviewer Training’, ‘QM Standard 1 – Design that Welcomes Your Students’, ‘QM Standard 2 – Measurable Learning Objectives at the Course and Module Level’, ‘Standard 6 – Choosing and Using Media Effectively’, and ‘Institution Representative Training’.
v Development and production of QM Subscriber Guide and a host of other publications used for marketing and information dissemination.
v Expansion of QM staff to include a full-time Subscriber Services Manager, full-time Training Manager, and a part-time Training Assistant.
v Growth to more than 270 QM subscribers, including the addition of 7 statewide systems.
v 139 courses received the QM seal of recognition.
Looking forward to 2009…
v We are excited to host our inaugural QM Conference to be held at the Mt. Washington Conference Center in Baltimore, MD, on June 7-9, 2009.
v Introduction of the QM Implementation Plan whereby institutions can receive QM recognition for their implementation efforts.
v Addition of new services and benefits to improve the value of a QM subscription, course review, and/or training.
v Improved QM Users’ Group to enhance the ability for subscribers to collaborate and communicate with each other.
v Continued gratitude toward our subscribing community who provide us with ongoing support, thoughtful recommendations, and generous feedback.
Although the current economic woes will no doubt affect many of our constituents and, quite possibly, our own organization, we wish only continued success to each and every one of you in the coming year.
12/15/2008
The QM staff often fields questions about which training should be taken first as an introduction to the QM program. In the past, it was recommended that 'rookies' take the Peer Reviewer Training (PRT) for an in-depth look at how to apply the QM rubric within an online course. Now that the PRT has been split into two modules, 'Applying the QM Rubric Workshop' and the 'Peer Reviewer Certification', the focus has shifted away from using these courses as an introduction to QM. We now recommed them for faculty members who have the desire (and meet the prerequisites) to serve as peer reviewers on either official QM-managed or subscriber-managed course reviews. The 'Applying' workshop and 'Peer Reviewer Certification' are also useful for faculty who conduct internal, or unofficial, reviews using the rubric. Note: although QM Peer Reviewers must have online teaching experience prior to taking the Certification module, Instructional Designers, and other staff, many find the 'Applying' workshop beneficial to the development of online courses at their institution.
So, the question remains...which QM training or workshop best meets the needs of those who are unfamiliar with, or need an overview of, the QM program? We now recommend taking the 'Improving Your Online Course' (IYOC) workshop as an appropriate way to apply the rubric standards to an existing course with the goal of preparing the course for an official, QM-managed, or subscriber-managed, review that is eligible for the QM seal of recognition. Our data continues to show that faculty developers who take the IYOC workshop, prior to submitting a course for official review, have much greater success in receiving the seal of recognition upon initial review. Even if a faculty developer does not intend to submit a course for official review, the IYOC workshop helps a faculty developer prepare a course for internal reviews by ensuring their course is ultimately aligned with the QM standards.
The IYOC workshop is available online as a two-week, asynchrounous course or face-to-face at your institution. You may see the entire QM training calendar by visiting our website at www.qualitymatters.org. 8/27/2008
With an eye on continuous improvement in our own organization, we have set forth goals that will keep QM at the forefront of quality assurance in distance education. To help achieve this, one of our partners, who is also a QM Trainer, Kay Shattuck, D.Ed. is charged with developing our research agenda which, in keeping with QM principles, is grounded in classic and emerging best practices and supported by the distance education research literature.
Dr. Shattuck has been working in adult education and distance learning for many years, most recently as Director of Distance Education at Carroll Community College in Westminster, MD. Her interest in distance learning began while working on her doctoral dissertation at Penn State University with Michael G. Moore, an internationally-known professor in the field. After receiving her doctoral degree, and “knee-deep” in distance education research, Dr. Shattuck was invited to share her knowledge with the original developers of the QM project, Dr. Jurgen Hilke, Mary Wells, and Dr. Chris Sax (Wells and Sax still work with QM on a contract basis.) After retiring from Carroll Community College this past spring, QM contracted with Dr. Shattuck to provide ongoing support from the scholarly literature for the rubric standards and to create a data bank of information that will serve as the foundation for the next iteration of the QM Rubric. Further, she is available and eager to work with masters and doctoral candidates who are interested in addressing quality in distance learning in their research as it relates to the QM rubric, standards, or process.
In addition to her research efforts and training for QM, Dr. Shattuck represents QM at prominent distance learning conferences, most recently at UWEX in Madison, WI. While there, she presented with Dr. Ron Legon, Executive Director of QM, on the topic of "Improving online/hybrid course quality using the recently enhanced Quality Matters Rubric". Next up is the WCET conference where she will moderate a breakfast roundtable discussion, ‘Quality in E-Learning’, with QM Director, Deb Adair. You may join them there on Friday AM, November 7th.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Shattuck. If you have any interest in collaborating with Dr. Shattuck on her research efforts, you may contact her at Shattuck@qualitymatters.org. 8/1/2008
It's the dog days of summer and many organizations take a break during this time of year to regroup and gear up for the coming academic year. Not the QM staff -- we have been hard at work implementing a number of changes within the QM program. Foremost is introduction of the updated and revised 2008-2010 edition of the QM Rubric. Not only have new rubric workbooks been printed to reflect the changes, the web-based rubric tool has also been updated and now will be used for all new course reviews. (Note: course reviews currently in progress will continue with the FY 06/07 rubric until they are complete.) Also in the works have been a number of revised and new QM trainings that are set to roll out this month -- you probably noticed we took a two month hiatus from offering training so we could move our courses to a new course management system and also work on developing new training content. Based on the number of online registrations and F2F trainings that have been scheduled already, we see a lot of enthusiasm and support for this part of the QM program and anticipate tremendous growth in training registrations over the next year.
In the midst of all this change, we continue to add new subscribing institutions almost daily. We welcome the following schools: University of North Carolina Statewide System, Schoolcraft College, Arcadia University, Bermuda College, Clinton Community College, University of Connecticut, Piedmont Community College, Collin County Community College, the Ohio Learning Network, Cape Fear Community College, Broward County Community College, and many others that are in the process of subscribing. We greatly appreciate the interest and support from these new subscribers but especially want to recognize those subscribing institutions that have continued to renew year after year. Their enthusiasm for Quality Matters has allowed us to extend our reach to truly become a national movement within higher education. 7/16/2008
With gas prices at the highest level ever, it’s no surprise that more and more students are opting for online courses as a way to obtain their education. According to an article in the July 11th edition of the New York Times, enrollment in online education has increased more than 100% in some areas of the country. Although four-year schools have seen a boost in online enrollment, most of the growth has occurred in 2-year community college programs. In the article, one of our Institutional Representatives, Georglyn Davidson, of Bucks County Community College (PA), is quoted as stating “Gas prices have pushed people over the edge”. Bucks County CC, according to the article, has seen an increase of 35% in online enrollments over last summer.
What does this mean for Quality Matters? Given the triple digit growth we’ve seen in our subscribing community over the past year, no doubt we parallel what is occurring in the higher education distance learning market. As schools respond to the growth in their online programs, they see an increasing need to use a nationally recognized quality assurance program, such as Quality Matters, to ensure their online courses are aligned with national accrediting standards which will result in improved student outcomes.
You may read follow this link to the New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/education/11colleges.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
7/2/2008
Peer Reviewers, take note! You've been requesting a spell check feature in the online rubric tool and now it's available. When adding your feedback about a course in the online rubric, you can now spell check your comments prior to sending the report.
Another added feature is an auto-email generated when a final report is submitted. This provides a link to the new post-review survey which provides us (and the review team) with information about the course review process. |
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