Targeting Program Design Certification: Leveraging Quality Matters Standards for Program Continuous Improvement

With an institutional goal of demonstrating academic excellence through program-level accreditation/certification, but without an accrediting body for the MS in Educational Psychology - Experimental Psycholgy Program, we are looking to QM to help us ensure the quality of this online degree. We are implementing multiple program-level revisions and building evidence to support an application for QM Program Design Certification. This QM-driven initiative extends QM Standards "upward" to program-level continuous improvement processes. The objectives of the session are to review examples of QM Standards that have been restated as program-level standards (e.g., Standard 5.4 "The requirements for learner interaction are clearly stated."), discuss QM-based revisions to course-level objectives and the impact of changes in course-level objectives on program-level objectives (e.g., review of alignment within the program), and discuss revisions to institutional processes and the impact of changes at the institution level on program-level activities (e.g., review of alignment in assessment after changes to course evaluation procedures).