The Quality Matters Impact program formally recognizes courses that meet Quality Matters (QM) standards and demonstrate exemplary online/hybrid course design. An extension of the award-winning PIVOT program, the call for participation in the Quality Matters Impact program is open now for the upcoming academic year with reviews scheduled in fall, spring, or summer.
Using the 6th edition of the QM Higher Education Rubric, a formal QM course review is a collegial process to provide helpful recommendations for continuous improvement and reinforce effective, research-based practices for online and hybrid course design.
A QM course review provides independent validation of quality, learner-focused course design. As of May 2022, five of the seven courses in the University System of Maryland certified by Quality Matters are taught by UMBC faculty. A course achieves QM Certification when it meets QM Rubric Standards at the 85% threshold or better and meets all Essential Standards. QM certification is valid for five years.
DoIT's Instructional Technology team manages the QM review process and facilitates the fully online, asynchronous Applying the Quality Matters Rubric workshop designed to help instructors prepare for a QM course review.
When a course is deemed having met QM standards, the instructor is eligible to display the QM Certification Mark on the syllabus or within the course itself. To maintain QM certification, and be listed on QM's website, courses may be re-certified for an additional three years or officially reviewed again.
Eligibility for full and part-time faculty
Faculty who meet the eligibility criteria are encouraged to apply by June 30, 2022 for early consideration and feedback. All QMI applications are due no later than July 31, 2022.
Applicants may choose one of two review types:
Inclusion Criteria
Faculty accepted into the QMI cohort agree to participate in the following activities:
Each accepted QMI applicant will be assigned an Instructional Design Specialist to answer Quality Matters questions and support your course prep for the QM review.
Application Requirements
An application to participate in the Quality Matters Impact program must include both course-level objectives and unit-level objectives.
Ready to submit? Please complete the QMI application.
Questions? Please reach out to one of the QM coordinators for UMBC:
Dr. Mariann Hawken, Director, Instructional Technology, mariannhawken@umbc.edu
Dr. Susan Biro, Manager, Online Learning, sbiro@umbc.edu
]]>As part of UMBC's effort to recognize exemplary course design through the Quality Matters Impact (QMI) pilot, a partnership with the Provost's Office launched in FA2021 as an extension of the award-winningPIVOT program, four Instructional Technology staff are now fully certified as Master Reviewers by Quality Matters:
The Master Reviewer Certification is an advanced certification for experienced QM Peer Reviewers. In a QM review, whether subscriber-managed like the ones at UMBC or facilitated by QM, Master Reviewers serve as Team Chairs for a QM review, ensuring the consistency of the peer review process, coordinating communicating between the team, and maintaining the overall review workflow.
Through the QMI, faculty participants received feedback from certified Quality Matters peer reviewers at UMBC and other online learning experts in the QM community. A course achieves QM Certification when it meets QM Rubric Standards at the 85% threshold or better and meets all Essential Standards. Currently, UMBC has five certified QM courses through its QMI program. An additional eight courses are scheduled for review through mid-June.
For more information about the Quality Matters Impact program, please contact the QM coordinators for UMBC:
Dr. Mariann Hawken
Director, Instructional Technology
mariannhawken@umbc.edu
Dr. Susan Biro
Manager, Online Learning
sbiro@umbc.edu
As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Thursday, May 26th and Saturday,May 28th. While many of the systems will be patched without any service disruption, there are some systems which require the downtime of key services. The schedule below outlines which key services will be offline and for how long.
Thursday, 5/26/2022 between 5pm and 10pm (most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):
Saturday, 5/28/2022 between 7am and 9am(most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):
Please let us know if you have any concerns or questions.
Thanks!
Tim Champ
Asst. Director of Research and Enterprise Computing ]]>Today, UMBC’s Division of Information Technology, DoIT, received a notification of a phishing campaign targeting the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS). The actors claim to provide a Summer Employee Benefit plan. Below is an example of the message.
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From: Greta Motter <gmotter@moore.edu> Date: Tue, May 17, 2022 at 10:10 AM Subject: 2022 Employee Benefits Program To: Employee@benefits.com <Employee@benefits.com> I would like to inform you about the Summer 2022 Employee Benefits plan, which will be available to provide financial assistance to employees and their families during the summer break.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last few years have been difficult for every family. The purpose of the Employee Benefits Plan will be to provide cash assistance to employees and their families up to the amount of $4,400.
The Employee Benefits plan is accepting new applications until the end of the month. Applications can be submitted via the Summer 2022 Benefits Plan page.
Sincerely,
Greta Motter Employee Assistance Personnel |
The recipients of the message appear to have been taken from the CNMS staff directory (https://cnms.umbc.edu/directory/).
Please note that this message appears to have been sent from a compromised account at the Moore College of Art. It is unlikely that anyone at that institution is involved with employee benefits at UMBC. Alwars examine unexpected or unusual messages carefully for inconsistencies that may indicate fraud. If you find something questionable, please message with full headers to security@umbc.edu For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Receive any suspicious emails?
Forward it to security@umbc.edu along with the email headers. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.
Follow us on myUMBC:https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/itsecurity
]]>This summer Instructional Technology kicks off a webinar series designed to support those who want to learn, create, and issue digital badges that validate learner accomplishments, skills, and interests across a variety of learning experiences.
What are badges, you might ask? Badges represent microcredentials much in the way that a diploma represents a degree.
Badging and microcredentialing have become increasingly popular in higher education and professional workspaces dating back to 2011. Digital badges are validated indicators of an "accomplishment, skill, quality, or interest that can be earned in many learning environments." Microcredentials can reflect a range of learning experiences, starting with single competencies and progressing to meta-badges or micromasters.
Badging and microcredentials represent a shift from static educational records and transcripts to online, digital, and portable credentials that summarize a learner's achievement, skills, or competencies (Selingo, 2017). Badges may be issued across programs and categories that include, but are not limited to, the following:
Driven by employers and industry certification programs, there are increasingly more partnerships with higher education to create shorter-form micro-credentials that can ultimately stack into a learner's lifelong learning experience (Braxton et al., 2021).
Skill acquisition for the 21st century workforce may mean that learners are interested in particular knowledge, skills, or abilities in specialized or niche topics. Badging these accomplishments is a step toward ways in which higher education can explore or offer flexible, digital "credentialized packages" of learning and mastery. As a result, there has been increasing focus on skills-based learning, experiences that produce rich and higher-order skills, and a learner's ability to demonstrate acquisition of new competencies (Baker & Jankowski, 2020).
Badging 100 is the first in a series of workshops designed to ensure individuals who wish to issue badges are comfortable with the process and understand what a badge entails. The Badging 100 workshop learning outcomes include:
Badging 100 will be offered this summer. Who else in your office, department, discipline or program needs to come on this journey with you? More information about registration will be shared on the Instructional Technology myUMBC group.
References:
Baker, G. R., & Jankowski, N. A. (2020, June). Documenting learning: The comprehensive learner record.(Occasional Paper No. 46). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment.
Braxton, S., Sullivan, C., Wyatt, L., & Monroe, J. (2021). Capturing Student Achievements and Learning at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County: Digital Badging & the Comprehensive Learner Record. IGI Global.
Selingo, Jeffrey J. (2017), The future of the degree. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/us/en/files/The-Future-Of-the-Degree-2017.pdf
]]>I am pleased to announce that Tom Penniston has accepted a new position as DoIT’s Coordinator of Learning Analytics.
In his new role, Tom will continue and extend his work to leverage institutional, academic, and learning analytics to inform course redesigns and improve student engagement and success. He will collaborate closely with DoIT’s Analytics and Business Intelligence team, the Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support (IRADS), and of course faculty, including recipients of learning analytics “mini-grants” (the next CFP is due 6/3/22), part of the UMBC’s Learning Analytics Community of Practice.
We are also pleased to announce that Tom has been accepted into this year’s competitive Learning Analytics in STEM Education Research (LASER) Institute hosted at NC State. More than 260 applications were received, and successful recipients also receive a $1,500 travel award and stipend. Before the pandemic, Tom had also completed the 2017 “Learn Lab” summer institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
In addition to writing several analytics-related DoIT News stories, Tom recently co-authored a chapter, “Scaling Course Design as Learning Analytics Variable” (UMBC Box version), and has presented at both the EDUCAUSE and American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conferences.
Please join me in congratulating Tom on his new role.
John Fritz
Assoc. Vice President, Instructional Technology
Division of Information Technology
Recently, the Division of Information Technology(DoIT) received multiple reports of job phishing emails. The scammers sending these emails are impersonating professors of the different departments at UMBC. The example below impersonates Professor Hennigan of the Department of Economics. For privacy purposes, we removed the To field.
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From: Barry Melvin <barry01d1@gmail.com> Date: Thu, May 5, 2022, 15:34 Subject: Internship UMBC To: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, The Office of the Department of Economics urgently needs the services of students to work remotely as research assistants and get paid $300 weekly. The position is served remotely and assignments can be carried out in your leisure time. The position is open to students from any department of the institution UMBC. To proceed with the application process, contact Professor Christopher Hennigan now at (310) 818-3769 via text message stating your full name, email address, year of study, and department to receive the job description and further application requirements.
Best Regards,
Professor Christopher Hennigan Department: Chemical Engineering Technology Research Center, Room 253 (310) 818-3769 University of Maryland, Baltimore County. |
Please note that the Departments or professors did not send these messages. Two visible red flags in these emails are:
The From address is not a UMBC email. In the example above, if the Economics Department or Prof. Hennigan were sending this email, the From address would have been a UMBC email address. However, it was sent from <barry01d1@gmail.com>, which is not a UMBC affiliate. Notice that the email's name is not registered under Prof.Hennigan’s name but Barry Melvin's. This is another giveaway that the professor did not send this email. However, please note that the email could have been spoofed, even if it appears to originate from a UMBC email. Therefore, always check with DoIT(security@umbc.edu) or email/contact the impersonated person on a completely different email when you see a conflict in the address.
WhatsApp/Phone number. A lot of scammers will ask for your number. If their number gets reported, they could easily get a new one. The same can be said for an email address; however, they will lose responses from other phishing email recipients if their email is blocked. If you ever receive a job offer asking for a WhatsApp number or a phone number in general, BE SUSPICIOUS!
The email template. This template is very common. After a quick Google search, we found three Job scams articles with the same template. So if you are ever in doubt, GOOGLE IT! UMBC will not use a known phishing template to offer you a job opportunity.
The other professors and departments impersonated using a similar template are:
Professor Brandy Wallace in the Department of Sociology <menitreksksjjekisodrekssj66@gmail.com>
Professor Anne E. Brodsky in the Department of Psychology <hollywoodardshop@gmail.com>
Professor Alan Sherman in the Department of Computer Science <mullerjame65@gmail.com>/<menitreksksjjekisodrekssj66@gmail.com>
Professor Lisa Dickson in the Department of Economics <joseplhevans@gmail.com>
Professor Park Do Hwan the Department: Mathematics and Statistics <joseplhevans@gmail.com>
If you have received any message similar to the one listed above, please forward it with its headers tosecurity@umbc.edu. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.
For more information about phishing, visit:https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=98136.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Receive any suspicious emails?
Forward it to security@umbc.edu along with the email headers. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.
Recently, the Division of Information Technology(DoIT) received multiple reports of job phishing emails. The scammers sending these emails are impersonating Professor Brodsky of the Department of Psychology. Below is an example of such an email. For privacy purposes, we removed the To field.
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From: Holly woodard <hollywoodardshop@gmail.com> Date: Sun, May 1, 2022 at 12:48 PM Subject: Internship UMBC To:
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, The Office of the Department of Psychology urgently needs the services of students to work remotely as research assistants and get paid $300 weekly. The position is served remotely and assignments can be carried out in your leisure time. The position is open to students from any department of the institution UMBC. To proceed with the application process, contact Professor Anne E. Brodsky now at (310) 818-3769 via text message stating your full name, email address, year of study, and department to receive the job description and further application requirements.
Best Regards,
Professor Anne E. Brodsky Department: Philosophy Performing Arts & Humanities, Room 455 (310) 818-3769 University of Maryland, Baltimore County
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Please note that the Psychology Department or Professor Brodsky did not send this message. Three visible red flags in this email are:
The From address is not a UMBC email. If the Psychology Department or Prof. Brodsky were sending this email, the From address would have been a UMBC email address. However, it was sent from <hollywoodardshop@gmail.com>, which is not a UMBC affiliate. Please note that it could have been spoofed, even if it appears to originate from a UMBC email. Therefore, always check with DoIT(security@umbc.edu) or email/contact the impersonated person on a completely different email when you see a conflict in the address.
Phone number. A lot of scammers will ask for your phone number. If their number gets reported, they could easily get a new one. If you ever receive a job offer asking for a phone number in general, BE SUSPICIOUS!
The email template. This template is widespread. After a quick Google search, we found a few Job scam articles with the same template. So if you are ever in doubt, GOOGLE IT! UMBC will not use a known phishing template to offer you a job opportunity.
For more information about phishing, visit https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=98136.
If you have received any message similar to the one listed above, please forward it with its headers tosecurity@umbc.edu. For instructions, visit https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Receive any suspicious emails?
Forward it to security@umbc.edu along with the email headers. For instructions, visit https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.
Follow us on myUMBC:https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/itsecurity.