Course Review

Quality Matters (QM) is an inter-institutional quality assurance organization. As a non-profit organization, they offer an internationally recognized faculty-driven Online Course Peer Review program founded on 4 underlying principles (or 4 C's):

1. Continuous (improvement)
2. (Student-) Centered
3. Collegial
4. Collaborative

The QM Higher Ed (HE) rubric emerged from research and instructional design principles for best practice. The rubric focuses on course design in courses that have an asynchronous online component.

Identical to Waubonsee's Online Course Peer Review in 2017-2020, QM applies only to Online (asynchronous) courses (.920-.929), hybrid courses (.950-.959), and Flex courses (.970-.979).

Note that like Face-to-Face courses, Emergency Remote Teaching and Sync Online is not a suitable candidate for QM certification.

QM focuses on the design of a course.

Design:

QM defines course design as the forethought and careful planning faculty put into a course.

Delivery:

This is the actual teaching of the course and the implementation of the design.

Example: What is design? It is the planning of a discussion board. Students are told when they should participate and how often they can expect the faculty to participate. What is delivery? It is how often faculty participate and what is being said to students.

QM suggests that reviewers take students' point of view to look for evidence that the rubric standard is met and not assume it is or isn't there.

The Higher Education rubric includes 44 Specific Review Standards (SRSs) divided in 8 categories:

1. Course Overview and Introduction
2. Learning Outcomes
3. Assessment and Measurement
4. Instructional Materials
5. Learning Activities and Learner Interaction
6. Course Technology
7. Learner Support
8. Accessibility and Usability

The rubric addresses three fundamental questions:

1. What do I want my students to learn?
   • Learning Outcomes
      
2. How do I know my students learn?
   • Assessment and Measurement
      
3. What do I do to help my students learn and succeed?
   • Course Overview and Introduction (Day 1 in the classroom)
   • Instructional Materials
   • Learning Activities and Learner Interaction
   • Course Technology
   • Learner Support (Relevant Institutional Resources)
   • Accessibility and Usability (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness)

Alignment is how course components work together to ensure students learn what you want them to learn.

QM defines alignment as "critical course elements working together to ensure that students achieve the desired learning outcomes". This is a reason why well-written outcomes are so important.

With a clear goal, it is easy to see if the course framework (content, assignments, and assessment) lead to what we say students should be able to do.

Once a course is officially QM-certified, QM provides Certification Mark, a digital image, for you and Waubonsee to embed in different web platforms, including the .edu site and Canvas. Each image is specific to a course and is not transferable.

The Certification Mark indicates that the course went through the QM Review process and successfully met the Review Standards. The image cannot be altered, however, a Widget Maker allows you to adjust the size and background color before displaying it.

Quality Matters recommends that a course is run at least twice before being reviewed using the Quality Matters Higher Education rubric.

Please note that internal reviews at Waubonsee using the QM HE rubric do not result in QM Certification. You can learn more about the HE Specific Review Standards by attending the Introduction to QM or APPQMR workshops.

Both during and after the workshops, you can use the QM Self-Review tool on MyQM Portal to evaluate your own course. The Self-Review is totally confidential. Please contact Jen Howard, Waubonsee's Quality Matters Coordinator (QMC) and Course Review Manager (CRM) with any questions you may have regarding QM standards or for assistance with course designing.

Jen Howard, an Instructional Designer/Technologist through the Office of Faculty Development and Engagement acts as the Quality Matters Coordinator (QMC) and Course Review Manager (CRM) and will be available to assist through the review process.

QM review standards have a quality goal of 85% or better.

For example: If there are 15 course outcomes and a reviewer believes 13/15 are measurable: For SRS 2.1, the reviewer will likely consider it "Met".

However, if another reviewer believes only 12/15 course outcomes are measurable, then the reviewer would consider SRS 2.1 "Not Met".

That is why QM requires a Review Team to have 3 Reviewers: Majority Rules. The point(s) awarded for each SRS is all-or-nothing.

QM Peer Reviewers are not unique to Waubonsee and are able to review courses for other colleges and universities.

QM Peer Reviewers are considered private consultants and must have a clear understanding of the QM rubric. To be a QM Peer Reviewer, you must complete both the Applying the QM Rubric (APPQMR) workshop, the Peer Review Course (PRC), and submit an application. In addition, you need to be the instructor of record for an Online (asynchronous) course within the last 18 months.

The APPQMR workshop is the pre-requisit of the PRC. After the completion of the PRC, if you are eligible, you must complete the QM Role Application on MyQM portal to be listed as a Peer Reviewer on the QM website.

To be a Waubonsee Reviewer, you need to be a current Waubonsee instructor faculty and have completed the APPQMR workshop.

Emergency Remote Teaching and Sync Online is not considered an Online (asynchronous) teaching experience.