Course Design Rubric Standards
Current Edition: Fifth Edition, 2019
Description: The K-12 Rubric is appropriate for use with locally developed courses or those adapted with significant change from publisher content. There are eight General Standards and 43 Specific Review Standards in this Rubric used to evaluate the design of elementary, middle and high school online and blended courses. The Rubric scoring system is used by the Review Team to determine whether a course meets Standards. Standards identified as essential have the highest point values and must be met in order to receive QM Certification*.
Membership Requirements: K-12 Basic or Consortium. This Rubric is also available with an Individual or Supplemental Subscription.
Who uses this Rubric?
The K-12 Rubric is intended for use with courses that are delivered fully online or have a significant online component (blended courses). Schools, districts and state education agencies use the Rubric to help them design and improve their courses to result in student success. Leading providers of online courses for K-12 students have looked to QM as the national standard for quality assurance in online education and student learning and inform the improvement of this Rubric. They include:
- Teachers, Instructional designers and design teams
- Students, Parents, Counselors
- School Administrators
- Public and Private Virtual Schools and Publishers
- School Systems, Local and State Boards
- Teacher Education Faculty
- College Admissions Officers
Key Features
Unique to the QM Rubric is the concept of Alignment. This occurs when critical course components — Learning Objectives/Competencies (#2), Assessment and Measurement (#3), Instructional Materials (#4), Learning Activities and Learner Interaction (#5), and Course Technology (#6) — work together to ensure students achieve desired learning outcomes. Specific Standards included in Alignment are indicated in the Rubric Annotations.
The nine General Standards of this Rubric are:
- Course Overview and Introduction
- Learning Objectives (Competencies)
- Assessment and Measurement
- Instructional Materials
- Learning Activities and Learner Interaction
- Course Technology
- Learner and Instructor Support
- Accessibility and Usability*
Development Notes
The initial standards (released in 2010) and subsequent modifications have been based on the insights of teams of experienced online teachers and instructional designers and on the best practices standards promulgated by national and international organizations such as The Florida Virtual School (FLVS), The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). QM regularly undertakes a revision process to update the QM Rubric that includes input from the QM community, research about QM Course Reviews and a review of the current research literature. It involves focused input from a 12 member Rubric Committee. In addition, the QM Standards have been examined for consistency with the conclusions of the educational research literature regarding factors that improve student learning and retention rates, as well as activities that increase learning and engagement. The Fifth Edition of the K-12 Rubric includes special Annotations for its application to elementary-level courses.
* Meeting QM's accessibility Standards does not guarantee or imply that specific country/federal/state/local accessibility regulations are met. Please consult with an accessibility specialist to ensure that accessibility regulations are met.
