I took QM training while I was an adjunct at another college. Now, for one of my adjunct gigs, I am required to take a QM course. Hence, I will be taking Applying the QM Rubric towards the end of this semester. While I am not required to take other QM courses, I figured I would take one in Fall 2023 (Designing your online course) and one in Spring 2024 (Improving Your Online Course) since the university will pay for it. What do you think about Quality Matters (QM)? IMO, they have become the gold standard of online education quality standards. Sort of like what the AACSB is in business programs. I came across this article - The Cult of Quality Matters. https://hybridpedagogy.org/the-cult-of-quality-matters/ Regardless of what the minority thinks, higher education online courses have mostly shifted to QM. As a result, it is not uncommon to see QM certification being a required (but usually preferred) qualification to teach online. What are your thoughts on QM?
I teach at a community college, and we are required to have all of our online courses QM certified. I do not mind doing this at all as I am still a new instructor and open to new things. The opportunity is to really think about the course objectives and ensuring that the content aligns with those objectives. It does take some extra time for the instructor as our instructional designers do not do this for us.
In my career in HRD, we've always used structured design--ISD, ADDIE, SAM, etc. My experience as a college instructor was normally much less structured--textbook, syllabus, go. So, to see higher education add some structure looks like a good thing.
