"Quality by Design: Strategies for Effective Teaching and Quality Course Design (QbD) is a faculty development course and OER that serves the vision of Open SUNY, including open content, cross-collaboration, asset-sharing, and the development of high-quality courses. Participants of QbD learn about quality course design, strategies to increase student engagement, improved assessment techniques, and how to provide students with the support they need to be successful learners. This asynchronous online course is offered through Creative Commons. The course content will be made widely available for on-demand learning or re-purposing at individual campuses.

QbD serves the goals of Open SUNY by incorporating the Open SUNY COTE Quality Review Rubric (OSCQR)."

Quality by Design main website http://commons.suny.edu/qbd

"QbD is an online faculty development course and OER that provides open access to high-quality course content and opportunities to engage in meaningful discussions with experts and peers on topics relating to Course Design, Interaction, Assessment, and Learner Support. QbD is a supportive, yet flexible learning environment that engages the participants to examine their courses (past, current, or planned) and improve on the design and offering of those courses. Through QbD participants identify the design and pedagogical characteristics of a quality course and integrate these qualities into their own course development. QbD is a collaborative, open, research-focused, and innovative approach to faculty development.

QbD is collaborative.
The course materials were developed through a partnership among the University at Buffalo (UB), Binghamton University, Empire State College, Open SUNY COTE, and SUNY CPD. QbD is modeled upon an existing faculty development course, which originated as an open-sourced MOOC created by Blackboard, that has been adapted by a cross-disciplinary instructional design team at the University at Buffalo. The course, which has been successfully offered to six cohorts at UB, will be further modified to include SUNY-specific content, including the Open SUNY COTE Quality Review Rubric (OSCQR). QbD leverages pre-existing assets by utilizing content that has successfully been used at individual campuses throughout the system. Through this grant, additional content will be created to complement the existing materials. This course serves the specific goals of the SUNY Center for Professional Development (CPD) and the Center for Online Teaching Excellence (COTE) and is currently being offered as a faculty development opportunity to campuses across SUNY.

QbD is an innovative approach to faculty development.
All QbD materials will be made available in a format that is “LMS agnostic,” that is, seamlessly transferable between Learning Management Systems. Most faculty development programs are geared specifically towards teaching tools and technologies that are offered by a specific LMS. QbD allows participants to explore core concepts that are applicable no matter what technology is being used to teach a course. This approach puts the design and learning outcomes at the forefront of faculty development rather than on the use of a specific tool. This strategy will encourage participants to focus more purposely on learning objectives, instead of letting a specific technology dictate how materials are taught.

The course materials are designed so that they are applicable to any teaching environment, online, blended or web-enhanced courses. This course reinforces the notion that good teaching is good teaching, regardless of the delivery method. This allows participants to apply these concepts to whatever courses they are teaching while avoiding the misconception that effective strategies are only applicable to one specific format of delivery.

The traditional model for faculty development is modality-specific, but also institution-specific, and often discipline-specific. This project allows faculty members at various types of institutions to collaborate and share ideas across community colleges, four-year colleges, and university centers. QbD disrupts the traditional model which precludes sharing with non-peer institutions. QbD provides participants at these institutions the opportunity to share their strengths and insights with colleagues at other institutions. This project helps to break down barriers, while building on the system-wide professional development programs at Open SUNY COTE and the CPD, and will strengthen the quality of education at all levels of the SUNY system."