Preparing for a Quality Matters Course Review

When should a course be submitted for a Quality Matters course review?

Quality Matters course reviews are designed for mature courses that have been taught previously and/or for courses that are fully developed online (including hybrid formats) such that reviewers can see all evaluated components.

The following checklist can help you determine if a course is ready to be submitted for review:

☐ Has the faculty developer/instructor had time to review the Quality Matters rubric and make modifications before the review? Faculty that are prepared for a Quality Matters review have better outcomes and get more out of the review process.

☐ Are the course-level outcomes specified and are there module/unit objectives for each of the course module/units? The lack of course-level outcomes and module/unit-level objectives is among the most frequently missed standards.

☐ Are all discussion board questions or topics posted for review? Student responses (stripped of identifying information) and faculty responses/feedback are not necessary to provide as the QM review does not evaluate delivery of the course.

☐ If the course uses email in any part of the institution, is this information made available to the review team? Examples of such email exchanges should be provided to the review team during its review of the course.

☐ Are all course activities, including all audio-visual components, available to the review team? Sometimes instructors make assignments "not available" after a specified "due date." All such assignments will need to be available to the review team.

☐ Are all assessment tools available for review by the team? The review team will need to be able to access quizzes, exams, and tests, and it would be beneficial to the review team to also have access to the grade book as it is set-up for the "student view."

☐ Can the review team see and experience the course as a student would?

What kind of course access does the review team need?

Because the review team will be reviewing the course from the student perspective, they should be provided student-level access. Teacher-level or design-level access is usually not necessary and is inappropriate and strongly discouraged in a live course. If it is necessary to provide teacher-level access, Quality Matters recommends using a course shell rather than a live course. The most recent archive of the course under review, with steps taken to ensure student privacy rights, is a common way to provide access to the review team.

How do I submit a course for review?

The first step, after ensuring the course is ready, is to submit a Course Review Application. Once this is completed, the selected Institution Representative will be able to view the status of the review at all times through the Course Review Management System. The process includes the following steps that are completed sequentially:

Pre-Review

• Once the application is submitted in the Course Review Management System, this application will notify the course instructor to go online to fill out the Instructor Worksheet and the wizard will notify the participants for required actions as the review progresses.
• The instructor or Institution Representative must provide the review team with appropriate access to the course. (Please note that this information is not provided to Quality Matters).

Review Period

• The review is scheduled for a 4-6 week review period, which includes approximately 3 weeks of actual review time in addition to pre- and post-review conference calls.
• Once the final report is drafted, the team chair will submit the final report and the instructor of the course will be notifed of the outcome.

Post-Review

• The instructor notifies QM of his intentions through the Faculty Response Form - to have the course recognized if it met standards or to submit an amendment if it did not. The instructor is notified of the date the amendment is due (within 20 weeks of the start date of the course).
• The team chair reviews and approves the changes to the course. The institution is invoiced and reviewers paid once the final report is submitted.
• Once standards are met, Quality Matters recognition is provided to course developer and course is listed in the QM online registry.