Examine Course Design Through the Eyes of a Learner

A well-designed course is more likely to engage learners and positively affect their performance. Using the QM Rubric and relevant review tools as a guide, you, your colleagues, or a team of QM-trained, experienced online instructors or course designers can evaluate the design of your online or blended course and ensure it meets QM Standards. When you’re ready to put a course through the review process, you’ll receive fresh ideas from colleagues who are interested in your course and can offer specific feedback in a positive tone that will help you to improve the quality of your course and create a more active learning experience for students.

Key Elements of Any Course Review

There are a few factors that will affect the structure of your course review process: the QM Rubric you select, the type of course you want to evaluate, and the type of review you want to conduct. For example, the members of a course review team will be different between a K-12 organization and an Higher Education (HE) organization. And an individual, Self-Review will not be structured the same as a collaborative review. While some subscriptions allow members to manage their own Official Course Reviews, publishers — and many other members — will work with QM to have courses officially reviewed. Regardless of the review, however, the following elements are always part of the process:

  1. Online or blended course to be reviewed: Access must be granted to those reviewing
  2. Rubric: One of the five QM Rubrics or a custom rubric created in My Custom Reviews (MyCR)
  3. Review System: Tools located in the QM Course Review Management System (CRMS) or MyCR
  4. Reviewer(s): Number and role depends on the type of review being conducted. Official Review Team consist of QM-Certified Reviewers, one of whom is a Master Reviewer serving as Team Chair
  5. Final Report: An aggregation of reviewer findings 

Choose the Course Review Type That’s Right for You

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HIGHER ED. OFFICIAL COURSE REVIEWS

Institution and Publisher courses can receive QM Certification by meeting QM Standards in an Official Review with certified reviewers.

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K-12 OFFICIAL COURSE REVIEWS

School, District and Publisher courses can receive QM Certification by meeting QM Standards in an Official Review with certified reviewers.

QM CPE certification bug

CONTINUING & PROFESSIONAL ED. OFFICIAL COURSE REVIEWS

Non-academic credit courses can receive QM Certification by meeting QM Standards in an Official Review with certified reviewers.

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RECERTIFICATION

Courses need to be recertified periodically. Keep QM Certification current with QM Standards and course revisions through a Recertification Review

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INTERNAL & PREPARATORY REVIEWS

Get an understanding of the course review process, Rubric options and possible course improvements. Use Internal and Preparatory Reviews for benchmarking and tracking improvements.

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SELF REVIEW

Become familiar with Rubric Standards and use them to evaluate your own course. No review team needed. A Self Review is an important part of the continuous improvement journey.


Course Review FAQs

Course Review Resources