Quality Matters and Pierce College

Quality Matters (QM) is a faculty-centered set of processes that address issues and practices of quality design of online and blended courses. QM is a leader in quality assurance for online education and has received national recognition for its peer-based approach and continuous improvement focus in online education and student learning.  Washington State Community & Technical Colleges subscribe to the QM Program, as do many other statewide systems and individual institutions.

As part of the continuous effort to improve the quality of online courses, Pierce College subscribed to the Quality Matters program in 2009. The QM Program has three primary components: The QM Rubric, QM Professional Development and the Peer Review Process.

If you would like, follow the link below to the Quality Matters web site.  The link will open a new browser window. When you have finished exploring, just close the tab to return to this course. 

Link to the Quality Matters website Links to an external site.

The goal in this course is not to go into depth on Quality Matters design standards. That would be another whole course in itself and many of you have already completed QM training. However, in addition to what QM is, you should be aware of how Pierce College relies on QM design principles when reviewing online and hybrid course design. 

  1. If your online course design is reviewed (by a Dean or the eLearning department for example) many of the things they will look for are based on QM standards, so it makes sense to learn as much as you can about QM and to start adding these design elements to your courses. You'll do this over the course of many quarters of teaching, tweaking and re-designing your courses and practicing continuous improvement. 

  2. Remember that Quality Matters is about course design, not course delivery or instructor quality. The standards are only for evaluation of the design of a course - they should not be used to determine your ability to teach your subject matter or to tell you HOW to teach your course.  

  3. Instructional designers and ed tech specialists who work for CEAL are all trained in how to help you use QM principles to design online courses. Consult with them if you have questions or need help with self-reviewing or designing a course.