Award recipients show how quality assurance strengthens student outcomes, faculty support and digital learning across higher education and K-12.
Annapolis, MD (PRUnderground) September 22nd, 2026
Quality Matters (QM), the global organization leading quality assurance in online and innovative digital teaching and learning environments, has announced the recipients of the 2026 QM Awards. This year's honorees include three recipients of the Making a Difference for Students Awards, recognizing individuals and institutions advancing learner success through quality online education, and two recipients of the Directors' Award for Exceptional Service to Quality Matters, recognizing extraordinary contributions to QM's community of educators dedicated to quality.
Together, their work demonstrates that quality assurance is more than a course-review process. It can become a system for supporting educators, improving learning experiences, strengthening institutions and sharing expertise across the field.
Making a Difference for Students Awards
Outstanding Impact by a K-12 Individual: Paula McDougald, Assistant Director of Design & Development, Virtual Arkansas
Paula McDougald is recognized for helping make quality a shared, ongoing practice at Virtual Arkansas. She led the effort to scale QM implementation across the organization, strengthening curriculum consistency, supporting instructors, and creating a structured approach to course improvement.
Under McDougald's leadership, every Virtual Arkansas course since 2023 has undergone a QM Internal Review before reaching teachers and students, while more than 65% of courses submitted for a QM Review for Certification have earned a Met First designation. Nearly all staff with more than one year of experience have also completed formal QM Professional Development.
Those practices are translating 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%.
"The QM Rubric has been much more than an evaluation tool. It has served as our organization's true north for quality in online learning, guiding our course design, review, and continuous improvement efforts," McDougald said.
Outstanding Impact by an Individual in Higher Education: Ashley Hughes, Senior Instructional Designer, Coastal Carolina University
Ashley Hughes is recognized for building the relationships and support structures that have helped quality assurance take root across Coastal Carolina University. Since joining the 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.
"My goal has always been to empower instructors with the tools, guidance, and encouragement they need to create engaging, student-centered learning experiences that promote student success," Hughes said.
Outstanding Impact by a Higher Education Institution: Indiana Institute of Technology
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.
Beginning in 2020, Indiana Tech 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 results show the value of approaching quality not as a one-time redesign project, but as an interconnected system of course design, faculty development, mentorship, and continuous improvement.
"This has been a huge team effort, and we are very proud of what we have accomplished for our online learners," said Mary Beth Graham, Director of Online Learning at Indiana Tech.
Directors' Award for Exceptional Service to Quality Matters
QM is also proud to recognize Jennifer Nobles and Dr. Rae Mancilla with the Directors' Award for Exceptional Service to Quality Matters, honoring 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, North Carolina Virtual Public School
Jennifer Nobles has been an active champion of Quality Matters for more than a decade through her work with North Carolina Virtual Public School, where she serves as QM Coordinator.
As a QM-Certified Master Reviewer, presenter, volunteer, and recent member of the QM K-12 Rubric Committee, Nobles has consistently shared her practitioner expertise wherever it can strengthen K-12 digital learning. In 2026, she continues that service on the QM Connect Program Committee.
Her contribution exemplifies the collaborative foundation of the QM community: experienced educators sharing their judgment, lessons learned, and time so that quality practices continue to evolve and benefit colleagues and learners across institutions.
Dr. Rae Mancilla, Executive Director of University Digital Education, University of Pittsburgh Center for Excellence in Digital Education (Pitt EDGE)
Dr. Rae Mancilla is recognized for more than a decade of service spanning nearly every facet of the QM community.
Since 2012, Mancilla has served as QM Coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh 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 crossed higher education, K-12, publisher, research, and Spanish-language review settings.
What distinguishes that breadth of service is its connective impact. Mancilla has helped move knowledge from research into practice, from experienced practitioners to colleagues, and from individual course reviews into the wider conversation about quality digital learning. Her sustained generosity with her expertise has strengthened both Quality Matters and the field it serves.
The 2026 QM Award recipients will be recognized at QM Connect 2026, taking place Oct. 26-28 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Learn more about the QM Awards and the work being recognized at qualitymatters.org/events/qm-awards.