Quality Matters Program

What Quality Matters Program does

Quality Matters (QM), legally Quality Matters, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland (with a virtual workforce distributed across the United States), that provides research-based quality assurance standards and peer-review certification for online and blended courses. Founded in 2003 under CEO Dr. Deb Adair (in role since 2007), QM serves over 1,200 member institutions across higher education, K-12, continuing and professional education, publishers, and government/corporate sectors, with claimed operations in 30+ countries and a community of roughly 100,000 members.

QM's core technology is a suite of research-informed rubrics (Higher Education Seventh Edition, K-12 Sixth Edition, Continuing & Professional Education, Publisher, and additional contextual rubrics) that serve as the design standard for a formal peer-review certification process executed by a network of 8,000 certified reviewers. The supporting technology stack includes the MyQM member portal for course-review management and professional development registration, the QM Classroom built on Canvas LMS for workshop delivery, and a Research Library of 1,000+ vetted studies. Complementary offerings include the Accessibility & Usability Resource Site (AURS), the multi-year CHLOE (Changing Landscape of Online Education) research project with Eduventures and EDUCAUSE, and free AI guidance resources.

Revenue is generated primarily through recurring institutional memberships (HE, K-12, Publisher, CPE tiers) and individual subscriptions, supplemented by professional development workshop fees (online $75, virtual $220, group virtual $1,500–$2,000, on-site group $2,500), course and program review fees, physical and digital rubric workbook sales, and branded merchandise. The go-to-market motion is enterprise field sales for institutional memberships, layered with self-service via MyQM, multi-modality workshop delivery (online/virtual/on-site), and the annual QM Connect conference; pricing for institutional memberships is quote-based and not publicly disclosed, while individual workshops and materials are publicly priced with member discounts.

Name

Quality Matters Program

Legal name

Quality Matters, Inc.

Website

https://qualitymatters.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2006

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

Quality Matters is a non-profit quality assurance organization providing research-based rubrics, peer-review certification, and professional development for online and blended courses, serving 1,200+ member institutions in higher education, K-12, CPE, publishing, and corporate sectors across 30+ countries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Online Learning Quality Assurance

NAICS

Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services (5416)

SIC

Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro primary industry

Online & Distance Education Quality Assurance Reviews (EDADAGAM)

akta.pro secondary industries

Online/Distance Education Quality & Accreditation Bodies (EDADACAK), Curriculum & Learning Outcomes Compliance Reviews (EDADAGAF), Accreditation Evaluation, Peer Review & Site-Visit Organizations (EDADACAI), Learning Content Editing, QA & Standards Alignment Services (EDAGAKAM)

Keywords

• Online course quality assurance
• Rubric-based peer review
• Faculty professional development
• Online program certification
• Digital learning standards

Headquarters

HQ city

Annapolis

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Supply Chain, Others

Revenue model

1. Institutional Memberships: Annual subscriptions for organizations (colleges, universities, K-12 systems, publishers, corporations) providing access to rubrics, reviews, professional development, and the QM certification mark. Membership tiers include Higher Ed, K-12, Publisher, and CPE subscriptions.
2. Individual Subscriptions: Individual subscription options for professional development and access to QM resources and tools.
3. Professional Development Workshops: Revenue from online, virtual, and on-site professional development workshops and courses. Individual registrations and group/organization dedicated sessions are available at various price points.
4. Course and Program Reviews: Fees for official QM Course Design Reviews and Program Reviews conducted for certification purposes.
5. Rubric Workbooks and Materials: Sale of physical and digital rubric workbooks, brochures, and workshop folders. Pricing is tiered by quantity. Workbooks are only available to Subscribing Members.
6. QM Store (Apparel and Gifts): Sale of QM-branded merchandise including apparel, notepads, pens, stickers, water bottles, mugs, and more through an approved vendor (Zancan Press) and Lands' End company store.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Quality Matters provides a faculty-centered, peer-review-based quality assurance system for online and blended courses and programs, anchored by research-informed Rubrics for Higher Education, K-12, Continuing & Professional Education, and Publisher contexts. Its core paid offerings are annual institutional memberships, official Course Design Reviews and Program Reviews that yield QM Certification (and Foundational Design Recognition), and a catalog of professional development workshops plus Teaching Online Certificates delivered online, virtually, and on-site.

Product overview

Quality Matters is a non-profit quality assurance organization providing an integrated ecosystem of products and services for online and blended learning. The core offering centers on QM Rubrics (design standards for Higher Education, K-12, and Continuing & Professional Education) that underpin a peer-review certification process. QM-Certified Courses and Programs receive recognition after passing official reviews against these standards. Supporting the certification workflow, QM offers Professional Development Workshops and Teaching Online Certificates for educators. The platform includes member tools (MyQM Portal, QM Classroom on Canvas), free resources (AI Integration Toolkit, Accessibility & Usability Resource Site), and research initiatives (CHLOE Project). Annual conferences and consulting services round out the offering, creating a closed-loop system where rubrics guide reviews, reviews drive improvement, and professional development builds the expertise to achieve certification.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• QM Rubrics (Higher Education, K-12, CPE, Publisher) Vertical-specific design standards that benchmark course quality across objectives, assessment, learner engagement, accessibility, and technology. Sold and distributed through institutional memberships; underpin official course and program reviews.
• Course Design Reviews Official peer-review service in which trained QM reviewers evaluate an institution's online or blended course against the applicable QM Rubric, with certification awarded if Standards are met. Sold to member institutions for individual courses.
• Program Reviews Program-level peer review service that evaluates an entire online program (multiple courses) for design coherence, teaching support, learner support, and learner success. Awards QM Program Certification upon meeting Standards.
• Foundational Design Recognition Recognition awarded to courses that meet the three-point Essential Standards from the QM Higher Ed Rubric (Seventh Edition) in an Essential Review, providing an entry-level quality benchmark prior to full certification.
• Professional Development Workshops Paid workshop catalog for faculty, instructional designers, and program staff covering course design, accessibility, AI integration, alignment, and assessment, delivered online, virtually, and on-site as individual registrations or dedicated group sessions.
• Teaching Online Certificate (Higher Ed) Certification program for higher education instructors that covers best practices in online course delivery, available as a fully online or synchronous virtual offering.
• K-12 NSQ-Aligned Teaching Online Certificate Certificate program for K-12 educators aligned with the National Standards for Quality (NSQ) for online teaching, supporting hybrid and online instruction in K-12 settings.
• Rubric Workbooks (Higher Ed, K-12, CPE) Printed workbooks containing fully annotated Higher Ed, K-12, and CPE rubrics, sold only to subscribing members at tiered quantity discounts.
• QA Consulting Consulting services for institutions seeking guidance on quality assurance implementation, course design improvement, and adoption of QM standards across online programs.

Quantifiable outcome

• Students in QM-certified redesigned courses logged in 10% more often, clicked 16% more links, turned in 19% more submissions, and spent 177 more minutes in the course per semester (FIU study)
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability3 records

Feature10 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• iDesigncoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 24 February 2026Quality Matters and iDesign launched a multi-year research study to explore how AI can support online program curriculum design at the program level. The study examines AI-human collaboration to improve curriculum mapping, with 18 participating institutions. Results are expected by the end of 2026.
• Fudan UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 May 2015In May 2015, Quality Matters and Fudan University (a Chinese research institution with over 500 programs) signed a five-year cooperation agreement to develop 'QM-Fudan Higher Education Online Course Quality Standards' adapted to Chinese culture and pedagogy. The collaboration aims to promote and foster quality assurance in online higher education in China and establish a Chinese higher education association for quality assurance. This partnership was recognized with the 2017 USDLA Global Impact Award.
• Eduventures ResearchcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEduventures Research has partnered with QM on the CHLOE (Changing Landscape of Online Education) project since 2017, conducting annual surveys of Chief Online Learning Officers. Eduventures provides research expertise and market analysis that complements QM's quality assurance focus, producing the CHLOE series of reports (CHLOE 1 through CHLOE 10).
• EDUCAUSEcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEDUCAUSE joined the CHLOE Project starting with CHLOE 9 (2024), partnering with QM and Eduventures Research on this multi-year survey of Chief Online Learning Officers. EDUCAUSE contributes expertise in higher education technology and institutional research.
• OneHEminorGTM or Marketing PartnerQuality Matters has a collaboration with OneHE for professional development offerings, allowing co-marketing and extended reach to shared audiences of online learning professionals.
• Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) / WCETminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerQM International Strategy Council member Mike Abbiatti is the retired Vice President for Technology Enhanced Education for WICHE and Executive Director of WCET. The connection facilitates QM's international strategy and digital inclusion goals.
• International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerQM CEO Dr. Deb Adair serves as President of INQAAHE, a global quality assurance body. This leadership position extends QM's influence internationally and aligns QM with global QA standards and practices.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• National Standards for Quality (NSQ): NSQ publishes online course and teaching standards that directly overlap with QM's K-12 Rubric and Teaching Online Certificate (QM even offers a K-12 NSQ-Aligned TOC). Both organizations compete to define the quality benchmark for online learning, particularly in K-12.
• OneHE: OneHE is a professional development provider for higher education faculty and a direct QM partner, offering overlapping workshop content on online teaching. It competes for the same institutional budget that funds QM's professional development catalog.
• WCET (WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies): WCET is a higher education association focused on digital learning policy, practice, and quality. It serves as an adjacent member of QM's International Strategy Council and operates in the same online learning policy and standards space, including quality frameworks for distance education.

Broad incumbents

• EDUCAUSE: EDUCAUSE is the largest higher education IT association in the US and QM's CHLOE research partner. While EDUCAUSE's scope is much broader (IT leadership, security, infrastructure), it competes for institutional membership dollars and thought leadership mindshare on online learning quality and technology.
• Instructure (Canvas): Instructure's Canvas LMS is the platform on which QM Classroom is built, and Canvas competes for institutional technology budgets that also fund QM memberships. As LMS providers increasingly embed built-in quality and accessibility tooling, they represent both a partner and a potential competitive threat to QM's review and rubric services.
• D2L Brightspace: D2L Brightspace is a major LMS platform referenced in QM's Accessibility & Usability Resource Site. Like Canvas, it serves higher education institutions with integrated course design and accessibility features that overlap with the functional scope of QM's quality assurance process.
• Anthology (Blackboard): Anthology, formed from the merger of Blackboard and several other edtech companies, offers a broad higher education technology suite that includes LMS, student success, and enrollment tools. It competes for the same institutional customers as QM and increasingly embeds quality and accreditation-adjacent capabilities into its platform.
• Coursera: Coursera is a major online learning platform serving universities and enterprises globally. It is relevant to QM as both a potential customer (for institutional quality programs) and a broad incumbent that shapes expectations around online course quality and credentials.
• 2U (edX): 2U's edX platform partners with universities to deliver online degree programs and MOOCs. As a large-scale online program manager, edX operates adjacent quality assurance processes for partner institutions and competes for institutional online learning investment that QM also targets.

Others

• Higher Learning Commission (HLC): HLC is a regional accreditor recognized by the US Department of Education. While not a direct competitor, HLC and similar accreditors set institutional quality expectations that overlap with QM's scope, and increasingly engage with online learning quality standards, positioning them as an ecosystem peer.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/QMQualityMatters
• Facebookfacebook.com/qmprogram
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/1261567
• Xx.com/qmprogram

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Quality Matters Program