Quality Matters (QM), a project funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Secondary Education (FIPSE) and administered by MarylandOnline (MOL), is now entering its third and final year of grant funding. Designed to address statewide and national needs for credible quality assurance in online learning, the QM project relies on inter-institutional collaboration as an integral

and essential feature of project organization, implementation, and impact. The project is on target and in many cases exceeding its goals in creating a replicable inter-institutional continuous improvement model to assess, assure, and improve the quality of online courses. Accomplishments achieved to date include:

• Involving faculty and administrators from over 100 different institutions through peer reviews, training, workshop presentations, and other activities.
• Reviewing 46 courses to date, with an additional 23 course reviews scheduled for Fall 2005.

• Training a total of 258 Peer Reviewers from 65 institutions.

• Receiving the Distance Education Program of the Year by the Maryland Distance Learning Association and a WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) award in 2005.

The project has thus far successfully pioneered the use of inter-institutional peer review teams as an integral part of the quality improvement process. Even more pioneering is the expansion of the peer reviewer pool beyond MOL member institutions to involve institutions in several other states in the peer review process. The QM has also seen unanticipated benefits from the model as a vehicle for faculty professional development. The peer review process has created a collegial and collaborative relationship between faculty course reviewers and developers, as both groups report that participating in a course review is a rewarding professional development opportunity.