Quality Matters Honors Innovators in Digital Learning

The 2026 Quality Matters Awards have recognized outstanding contributions to quality assurance in digital learning, highlighting how these efforts have positively impacted student outcomes, faculty support, and educational institutions across higher education and K-12. The awards ceremony took place in Annapolis, MD, on September 22nd, 2026, and was hosted by Quality Matters (QM), the global organization leading quality assurance in online and innovative digital teaching and learning environments.

The event honored three recipients of the Making a Difference for Students Awards, which recognize individuals and institutions advancing learner success through quality online education. Among them was Paula McDougald, Assistant Director of Design & Development at Virtual Arkansas, who led the implementation of Quality Matters (QM) standards across the organization. Under McDougald's leadership, every Virtual Arkansas course since 2023 has undergone a QM Internal Review before reaching teachers and students. More than 65% of courses submitted for a QM Review for Certification have earned a Met First designation, and nearly all staff with more than one year of experience have completed formal QM Professional Development.

These practices have translated into meaningful learner results. Students have maintained an average course pass rate above 90%, and one district reported major gains in state assessment passing rates after implementing Virtual Arkansas programs, including an increase in Algebra I from 24% to 80%.

Another recipient of the Making a Difference for Students Awards is Ashley Hughes, Senior Instructional Designer at Coastal Carolina University. Hughes has built the relationships and support structures that have helped quality assurance take root across the institution. Since joining Coastal Carolina University in 2024, Hughes has expanded access to the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric workshop, offered individualized instructional design consultation, and supported faculty throughout the course certification process. Her work has helped turn quality improvement into a collaborative experience rather than simply a review requirement. To date, nearly 150 faculty and staff have completed the workshop, 12 have become QM-Certified Peer Reviewers, and 65+ courses across all five academic colleges have earned QM Certification. More importantly, faculty report that redesigned courses are clearer, easier to navigate, and more engaging, reducing the everyday friction that can distract students from learning.

Indiana Institute of Technology (Indiana Tech) is recognized for creating an institution-wide approach that treats strong course design and strong online teaching as complementary parts of student success. Since 2020, Indiana Tech has implemented a new, QM-integrated approach to online course development with a structured, team-based model that pairs QM-trained instructional designers with faculty subject matter experts. In 2022, Indiana Tech added "Professors of Practice" who completed the QM Teaching Online Certificate and then mentored fellow online faculty. A new "QM Guide" role, in which QM-trained faculty review curriculum changes to ensure alignment with QM standards, ensures a continuous focus on quality. Today, 352 of the institution's 450 online courses have been designed or redesigned to align with QM Standards. That scale is significant, but the learner impact is even more compelling: Indiana Tech's overall online course failure rate has decreased 45.4% since 2020, with some redesigned courses seeing previously high failure rates fall dramatically when taught by mentored faculty.

The 2026 Quality Matters Awards also honored two recipients of the Directors' Award for Exceptional Service to Quality Matters, recognizing members of the QM community whose sustained service and expertise strengthen the work of educators far beyond their own institutions. Jennifer Nobles, Director of Curriculum at North Carolina Virtual Public School, has been an active champion of Quality Matters for more than a decade, serving as QM Coordinator and sharing her practitioner expertise wherever it can strengthen K-12 digital learning. Since 2012, Dr. Rae Mancilla, Executive Director of University Digital Education at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Excellence in Digital Education (Pitt EDGE), has served as QM Coordinator while also contributing as a QM-Certified Peer Reviewer and Master Reviewer, review chair, presenter, Facilitator, Research Colleague, and Vice Chair of the QM Instructional Designers Association. Her work has spanned nearly every facet of the QM community, moving knowledge from research into practice, from experienced practitioners to colleagues, and from individual course reviews into the wider conversation about quality digital learning.

The 2026 Quality Matters Awards will be recognized at QM Connect 2026, taking place October 26-28 in Jacksonville, Florida. Learn more about the QM Awards and the work being recognized at qualitymatters.org/events/qm-awards.