By Brenda Odhiambo

On Wednesday, December 6, USIU-Africa Online awarded 90 members of faculty with certificates for having completed their Quality Matters (QM) certifications across various modules, including Designing Your Online Course (DYOC), Improving Your Online Course (IYOC), Creating Course Alignment Maps (CCM) and Applying the Quality Matters Rubrics (APPQMR). The training is part of USIU-Africa’s efforts to ensure that faculty are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge in preparation of the launch of 17 fully-online programs next year.

In his comments, the Director, USIU-Africa Online, Dr. Philip Machoka commended the faculty for their dedication towards advancing excellence in the delivery of online learning, echoing USIU-Africa’s commitment to academic excellence.

"Your engagement in the Quality Matters training reflects your commitment to delivering a world-class online learning experience. Through the knowledge gained from this training, we will be able to deliver high-quality, learner-centric online programs aligned to USIU-Africa’s mission to provide an education that meets global standards,” he said.

Dr. Machoka’s sentiments were echoed in Prof. Munyae Mulinge’s remarks, who noted that the faculty’s participation in the Quality Matters training exemplified USIU-Africa’s commitment to transformative education, noting that such trainings were important in fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation in higher education, which set the university apart from its competitors.

The keynote address was delivered by Dr. Yaping Gao, the Vice President Member Services & Global Partnerships at Quality Matters, who spoke about the importance of quality in education. She urged the faculty to focus on the learner’s experience as they developed their programs, noting that the emphasis on developing a high-quality learning experience would have better outcomes on the students.
“I would also like to congratulate USIU-Africa for being the first and only Quality Matters member institution in Kenya, which I believe will contribute greatly to the development of a top-tier online education experience at USIU-Africa,” she noted.

The event also featured testimonials from several faculty members who had taken part in the QM training. They shared their experiences, offering firsthand insights into how the training had positively shaped their course design approaches, including how to develop courses from a learner’s perspective, and the application of the quality standards to ensure that the courses they developed corresponded to global standards.