Introduction

Under the direction of the Chancellor’s Office, a new third-party identity verification service is being introduced into the current admission application workflow to reliably verify and confirm the identity of students and prospective applicants before they enter the CCC system. 

To improve student use of IDme for identity verification, IDme needs to be more tightly coupled with the identity verification process required to disburse financial aid funds, specifically cash disbursements such as Cal Grant and Pell Grant.

On this page:

• Integration of ID Verification Service

• How It Works: IDme Verification Workflow

• Use Cases & Verification Workflows

• IDme Verification Data

• Verification Status Changes

• Data Delivery via SuperGlue and Reporting

Integration of Student ID Verification Service

The initial phase of this project includes integrating an opt-in/opt-out “ID verification” step for all applicants age 18 years or older. The ID verification step is positioned between the OpenCCC student account system and the CCCApply admission applications, allowing colleges to capture provable personal information to confirm the student’s legal identity.

By adding digital, direct, and self-service identity-proofing software into our existing workflows allows our local A&R and financial aid staff to focus their time on the students who need extra support and the individuals who cannot easily prove their identities, such as:

• Undocumented

• Minors

• Special Needs

• Fraudulent/bad actors trying to enter the system.

Benefits to Students

• Protects student identities

• Streamlines student enrollment and financial aid disbursements

• Helps prevent bad actors from stealing spots in online

• Large government agencies use ID verification

Benefits to System

• Reduces fraud across the system

• Supports Admissions & Financial Aid Processing time

• Focus more A&R staff time on student support vs fraud evaluations

• Large government agencies using ID.me

How It Works

All new and existing adult students (age 18 and older) will be encouraged to verify their identity during the CCCApply admissions process and when submitting a California College Promise Grant (CCPG) online application. To facilitate this, several new workflows have been incorporated into the OpenCCC account creation and sign-in processes that will guide the student to the application for admission according to their ID verification status (verified or unverified).

Below are summaries of the primary use cases and workflows, as well as how these new ID Verification processes will impact our colleges. 

Use Cases & Verification Workflows

Never Verified Students

New and prospective students over age 18 who decline to complete the IDme process during the application for admission process will submit their application with a status of Never Verified (IDme Workflow Status <idme_workflow_status> = null (blank or no value).

Verified Students

Verified students will have completed the verification process during the application submission process and will maintain this status for 12 months unless an account profile change is made that requires a re-verification. If a verified student submits another application within 12 months of uninterrupted verified status, they will bypass the ID.me process entirely and will be routed directly to their intended application or service upon sign in. 

Never-Verified to Verified Status Workflow

Returning students who declined to complete the IDme verification process during the application submission process will continue to see the IDme verification screens each time they sign in to their OpenCCC account or other integrated service. These students are encouraged to Verify their identity by signing in to their OpenCCC account and clicking on the Verify Now link at the bottom of the Profile page.

Unverified Students

An Unverified status means that the student was verified within the last year (or within 365 days from last Verified status) but had a status change which caused them to be unverified. A change in status from verified to unverified happens when the student makes a change or updates specific account profile information, including:

• First name

• Last name

• Date of Birth

Verified to Unverified Status Workflow

Staff-Verified Students

To support certain student populations including incarcerated students, the OpenCCC Account Creation Tool was developed to give colleges an option to create an account and submit an admission application on behalf of a student who isn’t able to do so themselves, and verify that account based on the identity information that the college has pre-validated. These accounts are stored with the IDme verification status of “staff verified” at the time the account is created, and will maintain this status for 12 consecutive months or until the student is able to claim ownership of the account themselves. At that time, the student will be given the opportunity to complete the IDme verification process and establish an updated status.

Staff Verified Workflows

Expired Status

A student’s “verified” status may expire if it has been over 12 months since their last verification or if they update or change certain information in their account profile, namely their first, middle, or last name, or their date of birth. The student must repeat the verification process to restore their status to verified.

Verified to Unverified or Expired Status

Primary Workflow Process

To facilitate the ID verification process a series of new screens will guide the student appropriately - following OpenCCC account creation, the sign-in process, and/or a change to their Profile information - depending on the different use cases. 

Unverified Student

New and existing students over age 18 may verify their identity as part of the CCCApply application process. This verification step will come right after the new student creates their OpenCCC student account or an existing student signs in to their OpenCCC account before they begin filling out an application.

Each new student following account creation will be presented with the new “Verify your Identity” screen (shown below). The student will have the opportunity to proceed to verify their identity or opt-out of the verification process at that time and continue to the application. Following this decision point, the appropriate verification status value and timestamp is stored.

Returning students who have an existing OpenCCC account but have not yet encountered the new verification process will have a “null” verification status value associated with their CCCID. These students will land on the “Verify your Identity” screen and will have the same two options: opt-in to verify or opt-out of the process at this time.

Returning students who have previously completed the verification process but have not submitted an application in the past 12 months, or who have updated critical information in their account Profile, will be considered unverified the next time they sign in or attempt to submit a new CCCApply application. At that time the student will be presented with the “Verify your Identity” screen again and will have to decide whether to reverify or not.

The CCC Verify Your Identity with ID.me Page

New and existing students over age 18 may verify their identity as part of the CCCApply application process. This verification step will come right after the new student creates their OpenCCC student account or an existing student signs in to their OpenCCC account before they begin filling out an application.

New, First-Time Students

Each new student following account creation will be presented with the new “Verify your Identity” screen (shown below). The student will have the opportunity to proceed to verify their identity or opt-out of the verification process at that time and continue to the application. Following this decision point, the appropriate verification status value and timestamp is stored.

Returning Students

Returning students who have an existing OpenCCC account but have not yet encountered the new verification process will have a “null” verification status value associated with their CCCID. These students will land on the “Verify your Identity” screen and will have the same two options: opt-in to verify or opt-out of the process at this time.

Opt-In (Proceed with Verification)

If the new or returning never verified student chooses to proceed, they are redirected to the ID.me website to start the CCC IDme verification process. Students who already have an existing ID.me account should simply sign in to their IDme account to complete our CCC IDme verification process.

Opt-Out (Decline to Verify)

If the student chooses not to verify their identity on the landing page, they will be prompted to confirm this decision on the Decline Confirmation page. This screen informs students that if they decline to verify their identity at this point, their access to financial aid may be limited or delayed moving forward. The student must confirm to opt-out at this point, or they can be returned to the previous page to proceed with verification.

If the student confirms that they want to opt-out of the process, they are routed to the resource they were originally attempting to access. For students proceeding to CCCApply, any application submitted after opting out of the identity verification process will interact with the spam filter as normal (they can be marked as fraud).

Verified Student

Once the student has completed the verification process with ID.me and their identity has been confirmed, they will not have to reverify for future applications for the next 12 months unless they make a change to specific personal information in their account profile, including their last name or date of birth. Following the 12 month period, the student will have to reverify their identity the next time they sign in to their account or access any systemwide technology application.

For colleges, once the student’s identity has been verified, the status of the new ID verification workflow status field will update from “null” to “verified” for 12 months (again unless the student makes a changes to their last name or date of birth in their account profile) which will change the status back to “null” in the system). Upon the first sign in following that 12 month period, the student’s status will be reset to “expired.”

Changes to Verification Status

The ID.me identity verification process includes several workflow states that change over time. The majority of new, first-time applicants are U.S. domestic and international students age 18 years or older who will have not completed the identity verification process through ID.me. These students will encounter the IDme process after creating their OpenCCC account and before they submit their first CCCApply application. If the student opt-out of the verification process, they will have an ID.me workflow status = Never Verified (appears as no value (blank) in submitted and post-submitted application data).

• Never Verified

• Verified

• Staff Verified

• Unverified

• Expired

ID.me Help Center & Support Process

Support for the new ID verification process will be provided by the ID.me Help Center.

ID.me Data Fields & Data Delivery

Three new data fields have been added to track the student’s identity verification status, including timestamps for the ID.me confirmation and status changes. Each of these fields support “null” values and, along with the workflows themselves, have been designed with ‘shut-off’ capabilities to prevent any issues with data delivery during our traditional application season cycles. The three IDme fields are:

• IDme Verification Workflow Status - <idme_workflow_status>

• IDme Opt-In Timestamp - <idme_optin_timestamp>

• IDme Confirmation Timestamp - <idme_confirmation_timestamp>

ID Verification Workflow Status: The <idme_workflow_status> field identifies the student’s ID.me verification status at various points in the process.

ID Opt-In Timestamp: The <idme_optin_timestamp> tracks the date and time of the student’s decision to either proceed with ID verification (opt-in), or decline to proceed (opt-out). This timestamp captures the decision point on the CCC side of the process for tracking purposes and is only populated when a student opts in; when a student opts out, this field remains null.

ID.me Verification Confirmation Timestamp: The <idme_confirmation_timestamp> will set a value provided by ID.me representing the date and time the student’s verification process was completed successfully.

These fields will be delivered to colleges with application data via the SuperGlue College Adaptor and will be available for reporting in the CCCApply Report Center and the Data Warehouse Report Server.

The Verification Workflow Status

Following this release, all students will have an ID verification status value associated with their CCCID. Students who have created an account but have not yet encountered the new verification process will have a “null” value stored as their verification status. Students who have encountered the verification system but choose not to verify (opt-out) will maintain a “null” status in the system and will be prompted with the Verify your Identity page each time they sign in until they complete the verification process. Students that successfully complete the verification process will have a “verified” status.

Account Profile Changes

The student’s ID verification status is displayed on their account profile page. A verified student may lose their verified status within the 12 months following their confirmed ID.me verification or if they change or update the following information in their account profile:

• First Name

• Middle Name

• Last Name

• Date of Birth

• Address

If a change does occur, their current status will revert back to “null” (unverified), and they will be encouraged to log in to ID.me and upload the latest version of their primary and secondary documents, which would reflect these changes to their identity.

Strengthening Our Fraud Prevention

Another benefit of this ID verification integration is the additional strength it brings to our fraud prevention mission. Applications from students who successfully verify their identity before they complete their college application receive a new fraud score of 7, which ensures their application data is delivered directly to the college and not paused for additional post-submission fraud evaluations.

Pilot Testing: Send Your Feedback

Pilot testing is available now! See the pilot testing instructions below. Communicate your pilot test feedback or log any bugs with our Staff Support team: staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com.

Pilot Testing Instructions for CCCApply Standard Application

1. Go to your college’s CCCApply pilot site or the “Unicollege” generic pilot site listed below.

   • Unicollege CCC Student Account & Application System login:
     https://pilot.opencccapply.net/cccapply-welcome?cccMisCode=ZZ1

   • Tip: Forgot to bookmark your college-branded CCCApply pilot site?? Copy the Unicollege link above and replace the ZZ1 at the end of the URL with your college’s MIS code.

2. Sign in with an existing pilot testing account, or create a new account for pilot testing

3. Don’t forget to tell us of any issues you encountered during your testing. Send feedback or log any bugs with our Staff Support team: staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com

Want to test specific use cases for the OpenCCC/ID.me integration?

Follow the step-by-step instructions in the document below to test three different use cases for the OpenCCC/ID.me integration release.

IDme Implementation

Following the initial integration of IDme student identity verification (February 2024), colleges must have SuperGlue College Adaptor version 4.9.0 or higher implemented in order to receive your students' initial IDme verification status data. Contact your CCCTC College Experience Manager at cems@ccctechcenter.org to ensure you have the most current version of the College Adaptor today.

Student Support

The OpenCCC Helpdesk will continue to provide student support, and as usual, the College Support Services team will respond to staff support requests.

Documentation

Please find all OpenCCC and CCCApply Data Dictionaries and User Guides in the CCCApply Public Documentation space.

• CCC Support Services

• Student Success Suite Home

• CCCApply Public Documentation

  • Data Dictionaries

  • Release Notes

• CCC MyPath Public Documentation

IDme Resources & Toolkits

Below are links to digital toolkits and brochures college staff can use to assist students with the identity verification process

IDme Digital Toolkit & Guides

• Click here to view and download the IDme digital toolkit for students.

CCC and IDme FAQs

Recorded Demo of the CCC and IDme Student ID Verification Process

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SohbpujRlLh4tmPqlHivSM-TlgTBKuzM/view?usp=sharing

Student & Staff Support Sites

• ID.me Help Center: https://help.id.me

• CCC Student Support website with ID.me topic: https://openccc-support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/22511674592269-ID-me

• CCC Staff Support website with ID.me topic: https://openccc-staffsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/23454507132685-ID-me