Martin receives award for QM-certified, redesigned online course

Florence Martin, an associate professor in the College of Education’s Instructional Systems Technology program, is a 2015 recipient of a Crystal Award from the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Division of Distance Learning.

The honor is for “an innovative and outstanding multimedia-based distance learning course or distance learning project,” according to the AECT. She will receive the Crystal Award formally during the 2015 AECT convention in Indianapolis on Nov. 6.

Martin is being recognized for the course “Design, Development and Evaluation of Online Learning Systems.” She redesigned the online course as part of a pilot program to obtain Quality Matters (QM) certification, a national, faculty-centered, peer-review process considered the gold standard for how distance education courses are structured. The course was certified to meet the standards during the summer.

Quality Matters was started by MarylandOnline Inc., a consortium of colleges and universities, and the UNC Charlotte pilot program was a collaboration between the Office of Extended Academic Programs and the Center for Teaching and Learning.