Applying the QM Rubric (APPQMR) The Applying the QM Rubric (APPQMR) workshop explores the Quality Matters Rubric and provides a framework to improve the quality of online and blended courses. This is the QM foundation workshop for anyone who might be interested in participating on a peer review team in the future, and participants will surely be able to apply the strategies to their own online course design. During this workshop participants have the opportunity to explore many standards of the Quality Matters rubric in depth, and to apply those standards to a demo course.October 14, 2015 ( 9:00am – 4:30pm)April 15, 2016 ( 9:00am – 4:30pm) Click here to register for the workshopA continental breakfast and lunch will be served What is Quality Matters? For more information see Quality Matters @ WPUNJ Quality Matters is a nationally recognized, faculty-centered, peer review process designed to certify the quality of online courses and online components. Colleges and universities across and beyond the U.S. use the tools in developing, maintaining and reviewing their online courses and in training their faculty. The goal of the Quality Matters project is to improve student learning, engagement, and satisfaction in online courses through better course design. The project is designed as a collaborative, faculty-driven initiative, in which online learning experts develop standards of quality course design and online teaching faculty carry out reviews, provide recommendations to peer instructors, and work in a collegial manner with these instructors to make existing online courses more effective. The Quality Matters Rubric has become the most widely used set of standards for the design of online and blended courses at the college level. Today, more than 800 colleges and universities subscribe to the non-profit Quality Matters. The QM Process for continuous improvement is the framework for quality assurance efforts in online learning and provides effective professional development for faculty making the transition into distance education. The review process starts with a one-day training session covering the details and application of the design rubric. The workshop will also deal with the baseline QM precepts of alignment and continuous improvement. Next, using the rubric — and with the help of colleagues and/or instructional technologists from the CTLT — faculty will design their courses. In the process of design faculty can refine courses by taking advantage of both the QM self-review and the CTLT Stepping Up to Quality tools. A three person review panel examines the course and offers suggestions for further refinement. The review panel includes a subject expert and one team member will come from an outside institution. Quality Matters standards are not meant to create either “perfect” courses or a perfect set of standards. However, judicious application of the rubric improves courses, and repeated reference to this evolving set of standards serves to make courses progressively better. The standards are not intended to be prescriptive; rather, they were developed as benchmarks for good practice.
