Overview
With an eye toward increasing access to the California Community Colleges and improving the student experience, a large-scale effort is underway to redesign the system’s online college application, known as CCCApply.
The Chancellor’s Office, the CCC Technology Center, and the Foundation for California Community Colleges, in collaboration with the community colleges, and in partnership ideas42, are collaborating to redesign the CCCApply experience with a student-centered approach in mind, applying behavioral science to inform design and practices to reduce subtle barriers that hinder students’ progress through the early phases of matriculation and educational path-choosing. Our effort is to make system-wide student facing technologies and interventions feel cohesive, connected, and relevant while streamlining the collection of student data to reduce fatigue, repetition, intimidation, and confusion.
Driver: AB 3101
The CCC Chancellor’s Office is driving the changes to ensure CCCApply supports students through the community college application and enrollment process, and is targeting development and implementation of the redesigned system in fall of 2019.
Short-term activities such as reducing the number of questions in CCCApply and creating a simpler application for non-credit students that began last spring has been bolstered by the passage of Assembly Bill 3101.
The passage of Assembly Bill 3101 gives us the latitude we needed to deliver a modified version of CCCApply for our non-credit student population. Lifting the requirement for uniform residency determination for all students allows us to look at other questions and steps that might be omitted at the time of application. Our goal is to find balance in what is asked of the student that is applying for college while still collecting all of the information required for state and federal reporting purposes.
The legislation cites the following:
- On average, the application process takes a student 45 minutes to complete due to the amount of information it requests.
- The state has documented an average abandonment rate of 5 percent, and ranging up to 14 percent at some community colleges, in regards to the number of students who begin the application process, but fail to complete it.
AB 3101 mandates that “only data that is required by the federal government, state law, or that is otherwise necessary, as determined by the chancellor, is collected during the process.” It further prescribes that supplemental student data should be collected only after the student has applied to a community college. Students seeking to enroll in career development, college preparation, and other non-credit courses would be exempt from residency classification requirements. Colleges would be reimbursed for additional costs imposed by the state mandate.
Project Summary
The project is applying behavioral science to inform a more student-centered design that is simpler, streamlined, and improves overall usability.
While the majority of students have a positive experience with CCCApply, all aspects of the online application process are being reviewed for potential improvement. This focus includes identifying and removing barriers for non-credit and other special populations that will decrease abandonment and increase successful application rates.
- Redesign Workgroup: A workgroup of diverse stakeholders have been meeting bi-weekly since June 2018 under the direction of the Chancellor's Office. Information is being assembled in a dashboard here.
- Behavioral Study: Ideas42 is currently conducting a study on CCCApply to discover and reduce barriers that hinder students' progress through the application & early phases of matriculation. Applying their design principles, a final recommendations report will help inform the short- and long-term redesign process including reducing clicks, minimizing questions,
- Phased-Approach: From a design & development perspective, the redesign effort is broken into two phases: 1) short-term, a series of "low-hanging fruit" changes intended to shorten and streamline the current version of CCCApply; and 2) long-term, holistic, rebuilding of the application back-end and user interface based on the overarching objectives of the system's goal to make student facing technologies and interventions feel cohesive, connected, and relevant while streamlining the collection of student data to reduce fatigue, repetition, intimidation, and confusion.
- Iterative Releases: Changes to CCCApply will be iterative and the overall redesign plan includes professional development, training, support, and consideration towards the impact on college operations, including the opportunity to solicit feedback.
- Stakeholders & Advisors: CCCApply Steering/Advisory Committee, Ideas42.org
Redesign Workgroup Members:
Project Objectives
Activity around reducing the number of questions in CCCApply and creating a simpler application for non-credit students that began last spring has recently been bolstered by the passage of Assembly Bill 3101. The legislation cites the following:
On average, the application process takes a student 45 minutes to complete due to the amount of information it requests.
The state has documented an average abandonment rate of 5 percent, and ranging up to 14 percent at some community colleges, in regards to the number of students who begin the application process, but fail to complete it.
Short-term Redesign:
Identify low-impact changes (low-hanging fruit) to implement to the current version
Support non-credit students with a residency-exempt version of the Standard Application
Incorporate recommendations from the Ideas42 behavioral study
Long-Term Redesign:
Holistic redesign to the CCCApply suite of applications
All-new micro-services-based form engine with new Download Client 2.0
All-new student-centric UI with mobile-friendly, multi-language, modern support services
Fully integrated with MyPath and SuperGlue for cohesive matriculation
With an eye toward increasing access to the California Community Colleges and improving the student experience, a large-scale effort is underway to simplify the system’s online college application, known as CCCApply.
The CCC Chancellor’s Office is driving the changes to ensure CCCApply supports students through the community college application and enrollment process, Activity around reducing the number of questions in CCCApply and creating a simpler application for non-credit students that began last spring has recently been bolstered by the passage of Assembly Bill 3101. The legislation cites the following
Redesign Phases
The CCCApply Redesign project is broken into two phases: 1) Short-term: response to AB3101 through a series of "low-hanging fruit" changes intended to shorten and streamline the current version of the application, and implementation of a 'residency-determination free" non-credit path via CCCApply; and 2) Long-term: a holistic, rebuilding of the application back-end and user interface based on the overarching objectives of the system's goal to make student facing technologies and interventions feel cohesive, connected, and relevant.
Phase 1: Short-Term Redesign
A primary driver behind the redesign of CCCApply is the recent legislation AB3101, which ultimately calls for the removal of barriers for non-credit students in the admissions process, and supporting the post-submission matriculation process in order to increase the number of “students in seats” each term.
During FY18/19, the CCCApply development team will be focusing on "low-hanging fruit" changes and addressing the non-credit residency changes in the current application, while working with the Chancellor's Office and stakeholder groups to gather requirements for the long-term redesign.
Objectives & Outcomes
The first phase of the redesign effort includes the examination of the current version of CCCApply to identify opportunities that will simplify, streamline, and improve the student experience and overall usability, and implement a process for 'residency-determination exempt' non-credit students within the Standard Application.
Implement a residency-exempt path within the Standard application for non-credit students
Revise, remove and/or hide questions and pages that are not required to be collected at the time of application by local, state, or federal mandate;
Deploy changes iteratively throughout FY18/19 (quarterly)
Review and incorporate approved recommendations by Ideas42 and CO per our confirmed release schedule
CO-required branding and styles upgrade to existing application
The approval of business requirements will be guided by the CCCTC, collaborative stakeholder groups, and the Chancellor’s Office.
The development team will continue to keep the field updated on the progress of the CCCApply redesign. Dr. Omid Pourzanjani, Visiting Vice Chancellor of Digital Futures Lab, recently held a monthly TechTalk on the progress of the redesign, including offering expected timelines for the new system’s release.
Deployment Timeline
Changes to CCCApply will be iterative across FY18/19 and beyond. The short-term phase calls for four quarterly releases through June 2019.
Redesign Release 1: September 2018
Removed the logic from the Date of Birth field that prevented children under age 13 to create an OpenCCC account
Removed the Social Security Number Encouragement Language pop-up reminder
Removed Introduction page - Application starts on Enrollment page
Revised the existing self-reported Multiple Measures questions for AB705
Removed Review Application page*
Combined Review App, Consent page & Submission page into one page
Renamed & Move the Demographic (Personal) Info page to later in the application
Implemented Apply to MyPath auto-direct after submission
Redesign Release 2: December 2018
User-Interface Refresh / Alignment with MyPath
Refreshed the user interface across the OpenCCC and CCCApply applications to align the look & feel with the MyPath student services portal
2018 Race & Ethnicity Disaggregation
Implemented new Race & Ethnicity Expansion layout and format changes on the Demographic Information page of the Standard & International applications
Redesign Release 3: March 2019
Enhance the Residency Page with skip logic
Enhance the Education Page with skip logic
Soft launch: Non-Credit Application (Phase 1: Development)
Redesign Release 4: June 2019
Redesign Workgroup Changes (TBD)
SuperGlue for CCCApply - International Application Data Set
SuperGlue for CCCApply - CC Promise Grant Data Set
Technical Maintenance: Upgrade to Download Jar (Upgrade Java 11 - Download Client Jar Update)
Project Roadmap
Also see: Phase 1 Redesign Development Roadmap
Out-of-Scope Work in FY18/19
Implement Auto-fill for Promise Grant Application
Move Consent to Release to Enrollment page?
Add Consent to Release to OpenCCC Account
Enhance Administrator to give access to in-progress applications (similar to old Xap Control Center)
Bulk enhancements to Admin 2
- Spam Filter API Link to Report Center
- Replace Text Editor widget in Messages module
- Toggle for Title IX survey questions
Phase 2: Long-Term Redesign
One of the objectives of the redesign effort thus far has been identifying the gaps in the matriculation process, before and after the application process. Without a structured transition from application to registration activities, many potential students are not completing the enrollment process after application.
The second phase of this redesign project includes a holistic rebuilding of the CCCApply application from the back-end architectural design to the user interface using the research-based review and revalidation of existing features discovered in the initial redesign effort.
Planned Objectives & Projected Outcomes
At the end of this fiscal year, we intend to have a clear vision for the holistic redesign of CCCApply, documented and approved with groomed business requirements for the following objectives:
Micro-services-based (generic) form engine back-end, fully integrated with MyPath
- Validation services for Apply, Promise Grant, International
- Workflow definitions for Apply, Promise Grant, International
- Split out certain functionality (e.g. residency calculation) into micro-services
Component-based front-end integration with MyPath
APi web service to accept Application data
Mobile-phone capability for CCCApply
Student-centric design supporting multiple languages and advanced support services (real-time chat)
Replacement of the Download Client with SuperGlue-based SIS-integration
The extent of the long-term phase in the FY18/19 fiscal year is limited to identifying, documenting, and getting approval on the holistic vision and business requirements. Professional development, training, support, and consideration towards the impact on college operations, including the opportunity to solicit feedback will also be factored into the redesign implementation.
The development of business requirements will include collaboration with internal and external stakeholders* and will focus on re-examination and evaluation of current features and functionality.needed based on research-based, quantifiable data.
Development work for the long-term redesign phase is out of scope for this year (FY18/19) and is expected to span multiple fiscal years.