The FIPSE-funded Quality Matters (QM) project is creating an inter-institutional continuous improvement model for assuring the quality of online courses. To characterize quality, QM first turned to the research literature and national standards. QM teams identified 40 elements, distributed across eight broad standards, shown to positively impact student learning. These elements were then incorporated into a web-based rubric and weighted from 1 to 3, where 1 is important and 3 is essential.