Quality Matters provides professional development, a set of rubrics, and a course peer review process that work together to support faculty in improving the quality of online and blended courses. QM has received national recognition for its faculty-centered approach to continuous improvement in online education and student learning. QM has review processes for both online and blended courses, and online programs.

QM Rubrics and Standards were created to help course developers, teachers, faculty, entire organizations, and — most importantly — students. The General Standards and Specific Review Standards in each Rubric are intended to guide you through the development, evaluation, and improvement of your online and blended courses. The Rubric and associated annotations are based on best practices that promote student learning and instructional design principles for quality course design. The Rubric is supported by a thorough review of the research literature and is updated periodically to reflect new techniques and technologies that have become available.

The course review process involves a review of a course by a team of trained, certified peer reviewers who are all experienced online faculty. This faculty-driven process is intended to be diagnostic with the overall goal of course improvement. It does not involve pass/fail judgments but instead relies on the team members providing specific guidance for the course developer on what might be done to modify the course in order for it to meet QM Standards. There is clear recognition throughout the process that there are many ways to meet each Standard and that no course is perfect. To receive QM Certification as a quality course, a course must meet Rubric Standards at 85% or higher in the overall scoring by the review team.