2013 Annual Conference

Presentation Overview and Instroduction of Panelist

Conference Topic Track:

Innovations in Making Quality Matter

PRESENTATION FORMAT: Panel (The panel will incorporate virtual and live speakers.)

Title of Proposal

The presentation will highlight the alignment of QM standards in an international, collaborative, and online learning context. It will center on the development and engagement of an international collabortion learning unit between two colleges and courses - The College of Westchester (New York) and Empire State college (Panama).

When institutions use the master course model as defined by the National Center for Academic Transformation, a problem arises when a faculty member teaching an online course is not the one who designed it. Is there something we can do in the course design stage to promote preservation of this design in the course delivery stage? This session will explore the use of checklists to prepare faculty to teach an online master course.

In this session, we will show how we demonstrate to leadership that Quality Matters does matter. Implementation of QM provides institutions with a systematic approach to avoid negative ROI through compliance – reducing rework and poor learner experience. We will share the story we tell and the methods we use to support our requests for continued QM funding.

Using QM Standards as a foundation, the Student Success Seminar (a required course for all freshmen) was redesigned to include more student interaction, engagement, individualization, choice, and support. We created an online shell that all courses, on and off campus, face-to-face or online, use so that sections being taught across the state would be consistent. We enlisted faculty and staff members, part-time instructors, community members, and students to help develop modular content and share their expertise.

Distance education has grown tremendously.  Accompanying this growth is an increase in regulations and standards.  Institutions are asked by accrediting agencies and the federal government to provide evidence that demonstrates adherence to quality standards and compliance with regulations.  In this session attendees will learn how QM activities provide institutions evidence that addresses accreditation requirements and federal regulations. 

Our team conducted a QM-funded research study exploring the effects of student readiness on student success in the online environment.  We executed quantitative research measures (Chi-Square test) aggregating sub-scores of the Smarter Measure Learning Readiness Indicator with final course grades while controlling for course and instructor quality using QM certification for both.