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Volume 4 Issue 2March 2001

CCC Online Application Nears Completion

Mick Holsclaw
Director, Information Systems and Technology
Yuba College

Tim Clow
Assistant Dean of Planning and Research
Contra Costa College

After two years of work, the California Community College (CCC) system online application project is moving from pilot to production on May 1, 2001. This TMAPP project began in 1999-2000 with a feasibility study of the merits of systemwide online applications and electronic transcript exchange. Contra Costa and Yuba College districts teamed up to conduct the study. The study resulted in a positive recommendation and the identification of many of the features that would add value to a systemwide electronic application. (See the project web site at http://www.cccedi.com for more details and the complete feasibility study report.)

The Chancellor’s Office extended the grant to conduct the development and pilot of the electronic application. Pilot districts were recruited to refine the requirements specifications, evaluate vendor proposals, and test the application. The pilot districts are Butte, Contra Costa, El Camino, San Luis Obispo, Sonoma, Yosemite and Yuba. The staff from these districts made substantial time commitments, and contributed from their rich experience and technical expertise.

XAP was the vendor with the most responsive proposal, and a contract and work plan was established. XAP has a national presence in the market of electronic applications, and provides the CSU system application service. XAP serves colleges and universities in eleven states. For more information, visit http://www.xap.com.

The CCC systemwide application was designed to provide service above and beyond those available on the many high quality application sites already available at California Community Colleges. Among these are:

Enhanced service to students

• Students enter much of the data once, and it is re-used as they change their plans and complete additional applications.
• Students will be able in the future to transfer data to the national financial aid application (FAFSA), pre-filling approximately one-third of the application.
• Students have a record of applications prepared and sent to colleges.
• Students can work on the application over several sessions, re-starting without loss of data.

Enhanced service to colleges

• Use of a systemwide application relieves the college of the necessity to structure the questions for the data collected for system regulatory and reporting purposes. New reporting requirements, such as the adjustments necessary to accommodate the multiple race and ethnicity option, can be made once at a central location.
• Use of a systemwide application relieves the college of the research and testing necessary to assure that the online application provides the highest available level of accessibility to applicants with disabilities.
• Use of the systemwide application assures that the application questions comply with the requirements of the Office of Civil Rights. The pilot application has been recently reviewed and analysis is under way to adjust certain critical data collection issues to comply with OCR concerns.
• Use of the systemwide application provides a Chancellor’s Office reviewed and consistent preliminary determination of residency status for fee purposes.
• Use of the systemwide application provides for college specific additional questions.
• A systemwide application provides a single point of development for future applications in languages other than English.

The application will allow colleges to link to it from their college web sites, and get the student quickly engaged in application completion. The download process is highly customizable, and includes the opportunity to select specific records or groups of records, and the opportunity to define partial record (names and addresses, for instance) downloads for purposes other than admissions processing.

The contract with XAP provides that colleges may purchase the service individually. The cost for 2001-2002 is $4,000 for initial set-up and training. The operational cost for the first year will be pro-rated from a maximum of $11,490. Contact Michael Tressel at 925-798-1790 or tressel@xap.com for additional information.