The Quality Matters Impact program formally recognizes courses that meet Quality Matters (QM) standards and demonstrate exemplary online/hybrid course design. An extension of the award-winning PIVOT program, the call for participation in the Quality Matters Impact program is open now for the upcoming academic year with reviews scheduled in fall, spring, or summer. 

Using the 6th edition of the QM Higher Education Rubric, a formal QM course review is a collegial process to provide helpful recommendations for continuous improvement and reinforce effective, research-based practices for online and hybrid course design.

A QM course review provides independent validation of quality, learner-focused course design. As of May 2022, five of the seven courses in the University System of Maryland certified by Quality Matters are taught by UMBC faculty. A course achieves QM Certification when it meets QM Rubric Standards at the 85% threshold or better and meets all Essential Standards. QM certification is valid for five years.

DoIT's Instructional Technology team manages the QM review process and facilitates the fully online, asynchronous Applying the Quality Matters Rubric workshop designed to help instructors prepare for a QM course review.

When a course is deemed having met QM standards, the instructor is eligible to display the QM Certification Mark on the syllabus or within the course itself. To maintain QM certification, and be listed on QM's website, courses may be re-certified for an additional three years or officially reviewed again.

Eligibility for full and part-time faculty

1. You have taught your course as online or hybrid for at least two semesters at UMBC.
2. You have proficiency with Blackboard by your ability to demonstrate the skills in at least six of the eight Skill Builder themes for Blackboard in a current or prior online or hybrid course.

Faculty who meet the eligibility criteria are encouraged to apply by June 30, 2022 for early consideration and feedback. All QMI applications are due no later than July 31, 2022.

Applicants may choose one of two review types:

• QM Review: Full certification review with external reviewers.
• QM Essentials: A partial review completed internally using QM's 23 Essential Standards.

Inclusion Criteria

Faculty accepted into the QMI cohort agree to participate in the following activities:

• Attend a 45-minute orientation session (TBD)
• Complete the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) asynchronous workshop (2 weeks, fully online July 12 - 26 or TBD January 2023)
• Or, if you have successfully completed the APPQMR workshop, you will complete a Self-Review of the course you will take through the review process
• Complete a QM self-review of your course (recommended)
• Attend a pre-review conference call with your assigned review team as QM course review windows are fixed: Once assigned, there are limited opportunities to reschedule.
• Implement recommendations to meet QM standards based on helpful suggestions from your assigned review team
• Respond to both a QM survey and a QMI survey after the course review has concluded  
• Participate on a future panel or record a testimonial about your experience

Each accepted QMI applicant will be assigned an Instructional Design Specialist to answer Quality Matters questions and support your course prep for the QM review.

Application Requirements 

An application to participate in the Quality Matters Impact program must include both course-level objectives and unit-level objectives.

Ready to submit? Please complete the QMI application.

• For early consideration, submit an application by June 30.
• All QMI applications must be submitted by July 31. 

Questions? Please reach out to one of the QM coordinators for UMBC:

Dr. Mariann Hawken, Director, Instructional Technology, mariannhawken@umbc.edu

Dr. Susan Biro, Manager, Online Learning, sbiro@umbc.edu

As part of UMBC's effort to recognize exemplary course design through the Quality Matters Impact (QMI) pilot, a partnership with the Provost's Office launched in FA2021 as an extension of the award-winningPIVOT program, four Instructional Technology staff are now fully certified as Master Reviewers by Quality Matters:

• Laura Wyatt, Instructional Design Specialist
• Josh Abrams, Instructional Design Specialist
• Dr. Peter Ariev, Instructional Design Specialist
• Dr. Mariann Hawken, Director, Instructional Technology

The Master Reviewer Certification is an advanced certification for experienced QM Peer Reviewers. In a QM review, whether subscriber-managed like the ones at UMBC or facilitated by QM, Master Reviewers serve as Team Chairs for a QM review, ensuring the consistency of the peer review process, coordinating communicating between the team, and maintaining the overall review workflow.

Through the QMI, faculty participants received feedback from certified Quality Matters peer reviewers at UMBC and other online learning experts in the QM community. A course achieves QM Certification when it meets QM Rubric Standards at the 85% threshold or better and meets all Essential Standards. Currently, UMBC has five certified QM courses through its QMI program. An additional eight courses are scheduled for review through mid-June.

For more information about the Quality Matters Impact program, please contact the QM coordinators for UMBC:

Dr. Mariann Hawken
Director, Instructional Technology
mariannhawken@umbc.edu

Dr. Susan Biro
Manager, Online Learning
sbiro@umbc.edu

This summer Instructional Technology kicks off a webinar series designed to support those who want to learn, create, and issue digital badges that validate learner accomplishments, skills, and interests across a variety of learning experiences.

What are badges, you might ask? Badges represent microcredentials much in the way that a diploma represents a degree. 

Badging and microcredentialing have become increasingly popular in higher education and professional workspaces dating back to 2011. Digital badges are validated indicators of an "accomplishment, skill, quality, or interest that can be earned in many learning environments." Microcredentials can reflect a range of learning experiences, starting with single competencies and progressing to meta-badges or micromasters. 

Badging and microcredentials represent a shift from static educational records and transcripts to online, digital, and portable credentials that summarize a learner's achievement, skills, or competencies (Selingo, 2017). Badges may be issued across programs and categories that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Curricular 
• Co-Curricular 
• Competency-based
• Skills Preparation
• Professional Development
• Training

Driven by employers and industry certification programs, there are increasingly more partnerships with higher education to create shorter-form micro-credentials that can ultimately stack into a learner's lifelong learning experience (Braxton et al., 2021). 

Skill acquisition for the 21st century workforce may mean that learners are interested in particular knowledge, skills, or abilities in specialized or niche topics. Badging these accomplishments is a step toward ways in which higher education can explore or offer flexible, digital "credentialized packages" of learning and mastery. As a result, there has been increasing focus on skills-based learning, experiences that produce rich and higher-order skills, and a learner's ability to demonstrate acquisition of new competencies (Baker & Jankowski, 2020). 

Badging 100 is the first in a series of workshops designed to ensure individuals who wish to issue badges are comfortable with the process and understand what a badge entails. The Badging 100 workshop learning outcomes include:

• Define what a badge/microcredential is and explain its utility. 
• Describe how badging efforts promote equity in higher education.
• Recall real-world use cases of badging at UMBC and abroad. 
• Explain the three main components of badging at UMBC: learn, create, issue.
• Identify metadata required for badges.

Badging 100 will be offered this summer. Who else in your office, department, discipline or program needs to come on this journey with you? More information about registration will be shared on the Instructional Technology myUMBC group. 

References:

Baker, G. R., & Jankowski, N. A. (2020, June). Documenting learning: The comprehensive learner record.(Occasional Paper No. 46). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment.

Braxton, S., Sullivan, C., Wyatt, L., & Monroe, J. (2021). Capturing Student Achievements and Learning at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County: Digital Badging & the Comprehensive Learner Record. IGI Global.  

Selingo, Jeffrey J. (2017), The future of the degree. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/us/en/files/The-Future-Of-the-Degree-2017.pdf