Quality Matters Hosts Seven Conference Events Focused on Improving Digital Learning

Quality Matters (QM) — the international leader for quality assurance in online and innovative digital teaching and learning environments — will host educators from around the world at seven conferences in 2023 in its largest-ever offering of conference events.

QM, a nonprofit organization, is known widely as a leading global advocate for quality assurance in digital education. Through its extensive 2023 conference programming, the organization aims to advance thought leadership and support educators and institutions everywhere in their work in this area through content that offers new strategies, perspectives, research, and opportunities for community building.

QM believes that, as the world moves beyond the emergency distance learning necessitated by the pandemic, the educational community must continue building toward a more sustainable future for digital learning. Educators from across the spectrum have begun to embrace the reality that digital modalities will be a permanent component of education’s future and seek to improve their skills in this area.

QM’s conference schedule for 2023 is designed to build pathways for educators to improve their skills and have important conversations by approaching digital learning from a number of significant perspectives. With more options for collaborative learning on a larger variety of subjects, the programming will present value to a broader spectrum of educational professionals.

“QM Connect, our annual conference, has long served as a venue for our entire community to come together in person, sharing insights and expertise while deepening connections and forging new ones,” said Deb Adair, QM’s Chief Executive Officer. “With our new virtual events series, we’re able to offer highly curated learning opportunities from experts in our community and target specific needs and audiences in formats that are efficient and effective for those participants.”

The organization’s 2023 conference programming includes the following events:

• The QM Research Online Conference, which took place virtually on February 16, featured leading experts from the QM community sharing the latest active and applied research on key online learning topics, including quality assurance. Through community-led sessions like “Building an Online Ed.D. Program on a Foundation of Research-Based Best Practices” and “Faculty Perspectives on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in Online Teaching,” the conference presented a rare opportunity for educators to engage and interact with researchers on their findings to discover how they might put them into practice in their own work.
• Higher Ed Quality in Action (Apr. 28, virtual) focuses on providing hands-on, practical experience to support educators in designing and teaching learner-centric courses that support student success. Sessions will explore implementation-focused topics such as reducing cognitive load, effectively using multimedia in courses, cultivating a culture of presence and humanizing the learning experience.
• The Presidents Summit on Leading Quality (June 23, virtual) invites senior administrators and academic leaders from institutions of higher learning to gather to explore how these institutions can articulate and use specific goals for quality that differentiate programs and achieve strategic enrollment management goals — leading to both student success and fiscal sustainability.
• The Symposium on Data for QA (Aug. 11, virtual) offers insights to both individuals and institutions for data planning and collection and making data-driven decisions, enabling attendees to better implement quality assurance. Educators, researchers and institutional leaders will come away from the conference with new approaches for putting data to work in service of quality online education.
• Q-Up for K-12 Digital Quality (Sep. 22, virtual) is the biggest event of the year for QM’s growing K-12 community. Primary- and secondary-level educators will discuss strategies for improving the quality of online learning and meeting student needs, growing their skill sets toward coordinating and deploying a successful online educational environment for young learners.
• QA Elevate Virtual Retreat (Oct. 6, virtual) is aimed toward two important groups in QM’s quality assurance ecosystem: Quality Matters Coordinators (QMCs) who serve as liaisons between Quality Matters and their home institution’s staff, and instructional designers (IDs), professionals who specialize in the creation of courses. QA Elevate will explore ideas for implementing or improving quality assurance efforts for QMCs and IDs at all experience levels.
• QM Connect (Nov. 6–8, pre-conference workshops Nov. 5, Bloomington, MN) is QM’s major in-person conference, bringing together hundreds of educators, instructional designers, administrators and advocates for three days of intensive focus on digital learning. The on-site format of the conference also offers the opportunity for attendees to engage in community-building with peers from across the world, forging impactful new relationships. This year’s theme is Milestones, Momentum, and Innovation, reflecting digital education’s history, present status and auspicious future.

The ultimate goal of each event is to empower individuals and institutions to better serve learners around the world. A 2022 Educause survey recently revealed that the number of students who prefer courses that are mostly or completely online has risen 220% since early March of 2020, indicating a strong upward trend in demand for online education. Through these conference events, QM aims to equip the educational community to meet this demand with quality.

About Quality Matters

Grounded in research. Driven by best practices. A community that puts learners first. Quality Matters (QM) is the global organization leading quality assurance in online and innovative digital teaching and learning environments. It provides a scalable quality assurance system for online and blended learning used within and across organizations. When you see QM Recognition and Certification Marks on courses or programs, it means they have met QM Course Design Standards or QM Program Review Criteria in a rigorous review process.