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SAVE THE DATE!
QM 5th Annual
Conference
October
1 -4
2013 in
Nashville
4th Annual QM Conference Wrap-up Photos and Survey Comments
Desert beauty of Tucson
"Outstanding! I have been to several education conferences and this by far was the best quality for the money"
QM Research Colleagues: Bethany Simunich, Kay Shattuck, Joan Mikalson, Julie Frese, Li Wang
QM Friday night dinner at coyote corral
"I would recommend this conference to others; I will be back next year."
Tucson sunset
QM conference luncheon
"Great! I will definitely plan to go again. I got a lot out of this and made some important connections both with QM and other subscribers."
Newcomer's breakfast
Exhibitor McGraw-Hill "Excellent conference! Last year was excellent, and this year's was even better. I look forward to next year in Nashville." Mary Wells leads QM pre-conference APPQMR session
"This is one of the best conferences I've attended in a long time. Correction, it was THE best I've attended in a long time. No joke. Most times I come back feeling like it was not worth the time or money with tidbits of information. QM gave me a "transformative" experience."
QM Gives Back to the Tucson United School District
QM conference program member
Steve Crawford
"It was my first (of many) QM conference. I was inspired, informed, intrigued, and enriched. I learned many things about QM, but mostly about how great online education looks and behaves. I have been teaching online for 13 years, but noted so many new possibilities. My teaching will improve because of the information I encountered! I can't wait to learn more in Nashville next year!"
QM conference breakfast
Dr. Tarry, Tucson United School District, address the QM conference and the QM Gives Back initiative
Brenda Boyd leads pre-conference workshop, Connecting Objectives and Assessments
Conference attendees at
Friday night cookout Photo credits:
Chadwick Fowler
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4th Annual QM Post-Conference Wrap Up Report
 QM conference attendees participate in a lively conference session on accessibility
Insights and perspectives of quality assurance in online learning were central topics at the 4th Annual QM Conference on Quality Assurance in Online Learning: Where Design and Content Converge held in Tucson, Arizona, October 3-6, 2012
Attendees from all over the country and the world, people dedicated to quality assurance in online learning, practitioners and leaders--came to Tucson to share their plans and gather ideas on how QM can be increasingly useful to them. We appreciate the investment many of you make in this conference as we know budgets and time are tight.
Here are our top notes, fun photos, and takeaways from the conference. All of us at QM share in your enthusiasm and we hope to see you soon as we begin planning for the 5th Annual conference planned October 1 - 4, 2013. Save the date! -The QM Staff
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The QM program has expanded to over 670 subscriber institutions adopting QM standards across North America, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Bermuda. You and your institution are leading the quality assurance movement in online learning.
QM's growth set the stage for a highly successful conference at the Loews Ventana Canyon in Tucson, Arizona. From the opening pre-conference workshops to the closing remarks, the venue provided an beautiful backdrop to the highly attended conference. This year, we extended the conference by a day to expand the program for a broader emphasis on quality assurance. A special featured guest to the conference was MERLOT, The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, another respected online quality assurance organization. MERLOT's presence allowed us to explore the connection between its content standards and QM's design standards, in what we hope will become an annual feature of the QM Conference.
 JJ Johnson presents at the QM conference
Conference participation was a great success, with 470+ attendees, an attendance record for a QM conference. Thanks also to our sponsors: WileyPLUS, Cengage Learning, & SoftChalk Cloud. Many thanks to QM conference exhibitors: Atomic Learning, eScience Labs, Grand Canyon University, Hands-On Labs, Instructure, INTELECOM, The Learning House, McGraw-Hill Tegrity, MERLOT, and Smarter Services whose contributions enhanced the hospitality we were able to offer the conferees. Arranged jointly by the Program Committee led by Julie Porosky-Hamlin and QM leadership, the conference brought together faculty, distance learning leaders, and administrators to share what they have accomplished in quality assurance with the QM Rubric and tools. Russ Poulin's keynote address, "Federal Regulations: Chasing Monsters From Under the Bed" provided an extensive update on distance education regulations enacted by Congress and the US Department of Education in the past few years. The program featured six pre-conference professional development workshops, a welcome reception, keynote address, over 55 sessions, 10 roundtable topics, a poster session, awards luncheon, and numerous networking activities. All of this capped off on Friday evening with a cookout and dancing at the Coyote Corral.
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Making a Difference For Students
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The conference was also the occasion to announce QM's"Making a Difference for Students" Awards
The recipients of the award include:
Individual Award Recipient: Outstanding Impact by an Individual
 Individual award winner Deborah Allen and QM's Brenda Boyd, Director of Professional Development & Consulting
Deborah Allen, Anoka Technical College, is recognized for championing QM in a collegial approach to build a campus-wide culture of online teaching and learning for the betterment of the student learning experience.
Institutional Award Recipients: Outstanding Impact by an Organization
 Indiana Wesleyan: Cathy Church, Amanda Fletcher, Kim Mierau, Brenda Boyd
Indiana Wesleyan University is recognized for their comprehensive, stake-holder based approach that demonstrates a systematic, inclusive method of continuous improvement. Part of their approach included reviewing and improving policies to make student experience more consistent and coherent.  Tidewater Community College: Lynn Rainard, Michele Marits, Brenda Boyd
Tidewater Community College is recognized for their significant commitment to develop all online faculty through taking QM professional development. The impact of this large-scale approach to improving quality will impact every online student at Tidewater Community College.
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QM Gives Back
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At each annual conference, QM launches the "QM Gives Back" campaign  This year, QM worked with the Tucson Unified School District. We are proud to announce that in addition to a conference sponsor match by Smarter Services, QM staff and conferees reached our goal of $2100 in school supplies to the homeless and group home resident students. Dr. Tarry of the Tucson Unified School District was on hand to accept the gift and addressed the conferees during the awards luncheon. Thanks to all the conferees and QM sponsors for their generosity. A special thanks to QM Course Review Manager Melissa Poole for leading the coordinated effort.
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| QM Conference and Continuous Improvement | | |
Part of QM as many of you know, is our mission of continuous improvement. With that in mind, we wanted to share some of the results and input from conference surveys. Now that the conference is over, it is time to lay the groundwork for attendance at future QM events and this input is used to help us plan for future conferences.
4th Annual QM Conference Stats:
* 41 states and 3 foreign countries represented
* 17% larger than the 2011 conference
* 94% satisfied or very satisfied with the overall quality of the conference (up from 86% the year before)
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