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Quality Matters: Inter-Institutional Quality Improvement for Online Courses

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The Quality Matters (QM) project funded by FIPSE and administered by MarylandOnline (MOL) is creating a replicable inter-institutional continuous improvement model to assess, assure, and improve the quality of online courses. Designed to address statewide and national needs for credible quality assurance in online learning, the inter-institutional collaboration is an integral and essential feature of QM project organization, implementation, and impact. The project uses inter-institutional, intersegmental peer review teams as an integral part of the quality improvement process; the expansion of the peer reviewer pool to involve faculty from two- and four-year institutions beyond MOL members in peer reviews of courses is also particularly noteworthy. The QM project's success to date indicates the viability of creating an inter-institutional collaborative process for quality improvement in online courses. Future efforts will focus on determining whether the project can build and maintain a sustainable model for the long term.