Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 29

Internet Learning
into an applicable process that can be used
across all academic disciplines. The collaboration
of peer reviewers across disciplines
points to Boyer’s scholarships of application
(practice) and integration.
Consistently Rigorous Application
of the QM Peer Review Process
Following the principles of faculty-centered
and continuous improvement,
the QM higher education Rubric has been
thoroughly reviewed and refined to ensure
it remains a current and effective set of
quality guidelines in online course design.
It is important to recognize that while there
is an openly accessible listing of QM standards,
the full QM Rubric contains detailed
annotations for each standard that assist in
interpreting and applying standards during
a course review. A course review without
access to the complete QM Rubric and
done by non-QM-certified reviews does
not meet the rigors of the QM process. QM
course reviews are conducted by a team of
three certified QM Peer Reviewers (PRs) –
all are active online instructors, all are currently
certified as QM PRs, at least one PR
is from outside the institution of the course
under review, and at least one PR is a subject
matter expert (SME) in the academic
discipline of the course under review. Each
team is led by a QM Master Reviewer (MR)
who has extensive online teaching experience
and in the QM review process, as well
as having additional training in facilitating
an inter-institutional virtual collaboration
of academic peers.
Each QM PR brings at least two
years of current experience teaching online.
Additionally, each is required to complete
rigorous QM training to become QM
certified; each is subsequently added to the
QM database of available PRs available to
conduct QM course reviews. Each certified
PR’s academic discipline is included in the
database. Course review teams are developed
using the database of certified PRs.
This ensures that at least one SME related
to the course under review is included on
each team. While a QM review does not
evaluate the content of a course, an SME
serves as a resource for others on a review
team on any course design implications
for a particular academic discipline. Each
review team is chaired by a QM MR, an
experienced reviewer with advanced training
on the rubric and review process, who
guides the team as needed in interpretation
of the standards.
Consistent Application of QM Peer
Reviews
Quality Matters is sometimes mistakenly
described as a “Rubric,” while in
fact, it is a process of engaging online faculty
who have further training in their use
of a validated set of standards (encapsulated
in the QM Rubric). This set of standards
guides reviewers in their collaborative assessment
of the design quality of a particular
online course. The rigorous QM peer review
process that results in courses meeting
QM standards of quality (either initially or
upon amendments) includes formal and informal
reviews of online courses and online
components of blended courses. Informal
use of the QM Rubric is under the discretion
of the subscribing institution. Formal
course reviews are either managed by the
QM program staff (QM-managed) or by
certified QM representatives within a subscribing
institution (subscriber-managed).
The analysis of 2008–2010 data
found no difference between QM- and subscriber-managed
formal course reviews
in terms of total points (t(272) = 0.831, p
=.406) or review statuses (χ²(2) = 0.500, p
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