Quality Matters and Montana State University – Great

Falls COT Peer ReviewMarch 11, 2009

Ryan Schrenk

Background – MSU-Great Falls Distance Education

• DE Dept History– 1st course for 5 students offered in Fall of 1997– WebCT CE 4.1 since 2001– D2L starting Summer 2009– Director of Technology-Facilitated Learning since 2002– Graph of Growth on next page

Growth of Online at MSU-GF

Integrated System of Support in DE• 2 staff members/lots of communication needed• Single Point of Contact is Distance Ed Office• We are the right answer or one step away at the most• Director - Faculty and Staff

– Scheduling, hiring, training, supporting, evaluating, business practices, communicating, etc.

• Student Support Coordinator - Students– Application, registration, orientation, tech support, book order,

bill pay, library, marketing pieces, etc.

Challenges: • Tying course evaluation to continuous

improvement (Director observation)• Long-time Faculty wanted people who knew

how to teach online giving them feedback (Feedback from Distance Ed Task Force)

• Faculty felt like they were “carrying muskets into battle” (2002)

Distance Education Task Force (DETF)

• (4) Experienced online faculty from every department• Advising group for Director• Communicate with faculty in departments• Meet several times a year when issues arise• Kept plugged into local/state/national issues in DE• Group voiced concerns about evaluation process that

didn’t add value to online courses• Recommended exploring peer review options

What is Quality Matters?

• Quality Matters (QM) – Originally FIPSE Grant http://qualitymatters.org

• Fall 2003 - 3-year Grant (link to Grant)• Maryland Online, Inc.• Link to Underlying Principles of QM

Principles of QM• Based on Research (Link to QM Research)• Promote student learning• Formative/continuous improvement• Faculty-driven, collegial peer review (not eval)• 85% to pass with all required elements met• 50% didn’t meet on initial review• Meant for “mature” courses

Choices to Make• Full Subscriber – Fees plus cost of training and reviews

OR• Buy/Use QM Materials– Rubric, Brochures, Workbooks, Workshop Materials

OR• Use Standards and Build Your Own System

What MSU-Great Falls Did• Visited QM Website, downloaded all material (free at

that time)– Learned of presentation at ITC’s eLearning 2005

• Attended QM Session in 2005• Brought idea back to Distance Ed Task Force• No Money to Complete Training• Agreed to pursue in coming year(s)

OTO $ From OCHE

• One time money + newly hired Instructional Designer = opportunity to pursue QM

• Sent DETF member to QM training 2007 ($300)

• Set up one course for QM review ($1000)

Attended eLearning 2008 • 3 sessions on quality course design models• Lessons Learned– Too costly for full implement ($1000/course plus

training $ + lots of time for whole process)– QM stamp – what about good courses w/o it?– QM stamp – what happens when you don’t get back

to it for a few years– how to guarantee continuous improvement

Lessons Continued• 2-3 Staff is not enough• Takes peers to make it work• Takes work to make it collegial• Hybrid models abound• People are willing to share• QM is not the only effort out there, but it’s good

What We Did• Brought back a combination of Schoolcraft

College and others with modified QM• Created Instructor Resource Site– Faculty Timeline/Checklist– Course Design Guidelines– Checklist of Guidelines– New Instructor Instructions

What We Did• Piloted our own process with DETF on 2

classes– 3 reviewers for each course– Modified Documents Based upon “hard to score”

guidelines – Began setting structure for 2009 Peer Review

Process

What’s Changed Since Then…• Lost Instructional Designer• Adopted new LMS• Use documents - new and redesign of courses• No Peer Review Process Implemented (Yet)

Wrapping Up/Q & A• Explore sites

– http://distance.msugf.edu– http://qualitymatters.org

• Others– http://www.oln.org/ILT/coursecheck/coursecheck.php – http://lpc1.clpccd.cc.ca.us/lpc/blackboard/best_practices/– http://www.westga.edu/~distance/roblyer32.html– http://mus.edu/online/CorePrinciples0308.asp – http://uvsc.edu/disted/cheat/– http://learningfield.org/cheat/

Contact Information

• Ryan Schrenk– Director of Technology-Facilitated Learning– rschrenk@msugf.edu– 406-771-4444