The CCCApply Annual Report FY 2017 is the annual overview report for the CCCApply Standard & International applications, the Board of Governors Fee Waiver application, and the OpenCCC Student Account System.between July 1, 2016 - June 30, 2017.  

Contents

Overview 

CCCApply is the online application to all 113 California Community Colleges. Owned and operated by the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office (CCCCO), CCCApply is developed by the CCC Technology Center (CCCTC), and governed by 45-member CCCApply Steering Committee which is made up of new and experienced Admissions, IT, and Research staff from colleges across Northern, Central, and Southern California, and the San Francisco Bay Area. 

The CCCApply suite of applications includes: 

• CCCApply Standard Application
• CCCApply International Application
• Board of Governors Fee Waiver Application 
• CCCApply Administrator (v1.0)
• CCC Report Center (Jasper)
• CCC Title IX Survey Application
• CCCApply Download Client Tool
• CCC Helpdesk Application
• School Maintenance Table
• and the OpenCCC Student Account System

Charter & Mission Statement

CCCApply is the online gateway to the California Community Colleges. Each year at our 113 colleges, nearly three million students from all over the world build their career skills, prepare for transfer to four-year colleges and universities, or simply enrich their lives through learning. Since 2001, CCCApply has provided a streamline online user experience for over 5 million users

Milestones & Accomplishments

• 2017 CCCApply Annual Update (release 5.5) - March 30, 2017
• Signed & executed RFP for New Portal Software Development:   Executed RFP to develop the next version of CCCApply (v.3.0)
• New Administrator 2.0  Development of a new CCC Administrator (v.2.0) tool which will serve multiple CCCTC web applications and vendor products, including CCCApply. Due to launch in October 2017.
• Adoption:  Facilitated adoption and implementation for 18 colleges to the OpenCCCApply, BOG, and International Applications; 
• SSO Proxy: Developed and implemented the CCC Single Sign On Initiative for 53 colleges Adoption: CCC SSO Proxy Integration 
• Systems Upgrades: Continuous improvement of infrastructure systems and applications, including Shibboleth IdP, Tomcat, uPortal, 
• MyPath Workflows: Streamlined an integrated pathway between MyPath, the new Student Services Portal, and CCCApply; currently five colleges have implemented that 
• Account Recovery Improvements: New password reset by email feature reduced overall support requests by 64%; more enhancements underway
• Streamlined Application Processes: Implemented auto-login from new account creation to first application, and auto-population for return applicants within 2 years

• AWS Migration: Enhanced security, speed and load balancing by moving off Rackspace to Amazon Web Services; better access to services e Infrastructure

  
  
  
  
  

OpenCCC wins 2017 CENIC Innovation Award for OpenCCC Federated Identity Initiative

• Professional Development: 2017 CCCApply & eTranscript California Workshop - 280 attendees across both days.
• OpenCCCApply Migration to Amazon Web Service Cloud Web-based Infrastructure
• Addressing abandoned applications through 24hr & 7 day system-generated email reminders
• Developed an approved paper-based version of the CCCApply Standard Application for colleges.

News & Events

CENIC Awards OpenCCC with Innovation Award

RFP Completed for Portal Software Development

OpenCCCApply Migration to Amazon Web Services (AWS)

CCCApply Infographic

Conferences & Workshops

2017 CCCApply & eTranscript California Annual Workshop

This year's annual workshop, "CCCApply: On the Roadmap", was held on April 12 & 13, 2017 at Sacramento City College.

Keynote speaker, Pam Walker, Vice Chancellor of Education Services, CCCCO, kicked off the day's sessions to more than 250 CCC Admissions and Student Services staff over six sessions over three tracks throughout the day-long event: Admissions, Advanced IT, and On the Roadmap.  Click here for Workshop Presentations.

CISOA Conference March 25 - 27, 2017

Patty will present on the status of CCCApply Annual Update at the  CISOA Conference on March 26, 2017.

CACCRAO Conference April 23-27, 2017

Patty & Mike Quiaiot, CCCCO, will present at the General Session of the CACCRAO Conference, April 23-27, 2017 in San Diego, CA.  This is a pretty big deal.

Research Underway:  

Request for Separate Non-credit Version of CCCApply  Application

1. Steering Committee & CCCCO collaborating on a Whitepaper with executive summary;

2. Steering  sub-committee meeting 2/27 to finalize first draft. Hope to present information at upcoming conferences.

CCCTC Data Scientist Crunches Numbers on CCCID Duplicates (It’s going down!)

1. Duplication rate as of January 31, 2017 = .002%

Submitted App Data, Student Satisfaction Survey, and Google Analytics Support Research on Abandoned Application Stats

1. Investigating Abandoned Applications Stats - Pulling data together now to better understand time between start and submission of applications, apps started but not submitted on the same day, etc

Google Analytics being implemented across all CCCApply applications, Account Recovery, OpenCCC

XAP CCCApply Data Purge Project Update:

Xap-CCCCO Master Contract expired in June 2016 (Original exp. Date = June 30, 2014)

In July 2016, a copy of the remaining Xap-CCCApply data was purchased by contract extension, and In October, the data was transferred to the Tech Center via secure SFTP, overseen by Jeff Holden, CISO, and stored in secure database.

December 12, the data purge was complete.

NOTE:  The raw data received from Xap is still unformatted, but safely preserved in secure database. Tech Center team will work on formatting the remaining data on a college by college basis, as time permits. In the meantime, if a college needs to retrieve a copy of a submitted application that is not yet formatted in the Report Center, they should submit a request to CCCApply College support.

Decrease in Support Calls to Helpdesk - Since September 2016 Release:

Incoming calls for support to the CCC Help Desk has decreased from 6,593 in September 2016 to 3,337 in October 2016; a 65% decrease. See "Application Stats" below for table of submitted applications vs. Incoming Support calls for year over year running totals.

Significant decrease may be attributed to the new account recovery enhancement, Password Reset by Email Link, developed and released September 30 (Release 5.5).

Adoption

Research

Over the past year the CCC Technology Center, with help from the CCCApply Steering leadership team and Michael Q. from the Chancellor's Office, have been looking hard at various aspects of our application in order to:

Address concerns submitted by CACCRAO, the CCCCO, and individual colleges, regarding the length of the Standard application, and that students may be abandoning the application due the length;

Address concerns from the Academic Senate that the application, as it is, creates barriers for Noncredit students, both in regards to the lengthly process, as well as the overall relevance of the questions for this population;

Gain a better understanding of the state, federal, and other, laws and regulations that the questions on the application comply with and which ones we can legally remove based on these legal or regulatory requirements;

Gain a better understanding of the application process from the student's perspective, including their level of satisfaction with the application overall; whether or not they would recommend CCCApply to others, and finally give them the opportunity to comment on the application process (positive and negative comments allowed - no restrictions).  

Research Completed

CCCApply Application Abandonment Research (Time to Completion; Top Ten Colleges with Highest Abandonment Rate; Frequency of Abandonment across CCCApply Pages)

CCCApply Legal Requirements Review (Required Questions in CCCApply)

Duplicate CCCID Accounts

Analysis of Student Satisfaction Survey 

Cluster Analysis on Comments from Student Satisfaction Survey

Research projects currently in-process:

Fraudulent Applications - for the primary purpose of determining how best to combat / prevent future fraud activity

Number of Duplicate CCCIDs Since September 2016 = for the primary purpose of determining how best to improve the Account Creation and/or Account Matching services in OpenCCC.

Deeper Analysis of Abandoned Application Data based on the page they left the application on

CCCApply Abandonment & Time to Completion Analysis

< Patty to enter summary and link to the report once it's been shared with Steering.>

CCCApply Legal Requirements Review

(Required Questions in CCCApply)

Cluster Analysis on Student Satisfaction Survey

The optional Student Satisfaction Survey that appears to applicants at the end of the CCCApply applications (post-submission) includes three questions intended to better understand how satisfied students were with our online application.  

Experience: "“How would you rate your experience applying to this college using the online application?”
Very Satisfied
Satisfied
Neutral
Dissatisfied
Very Dissatisfied

Recommend:  "Would you recommend this online application process to other students?”  
Yes or No

Comments: "Please share any comments you would like to make about this online application.”
Applicants are provided an open text box to enter their comments.

Roadmap

Roadmap of Portfolio of Applications

Release Management

Releases & Annual Update Schedule

/wiki/spaces/CCCINFRA/pages/174654546 (April 4, 2017 - Patch release; 6.0 International  (See also Release 6.02 rel

6.0.0 Release (March 31, 2017 - See pre-Release Notes Summary here.)

5.5.0 Release (September 29, 2016)

5.5.1 Release (October 2016)

5.5.2 Release (December 2016)

Technical Updates:

• Shibboleth Upgrade to v3.1
• Tomcat 8.x (May 2017)
• uPortal 5.x (May 2017)

CCCApply Enrollment Stats - 2014-2017

The Enrollment Cycle Stats - data chart and worksheet helps CCCApply identify trends in enrollment activity, and plan dates for the CCCApply Annual Update release.  (March Update aligns to dips in spring enrollment for Fall terms.)

CCCApply MAINTENANCE MODE

On April 1, 2016 - right after the 2016 Annual Update (March 31) and the launch of the International Application , our focus and development roadmap for CCCApply shifted from a software development phase to ”Maintenance mode” phase; the long-standing Unicon Apply development team was slashed and developers were reassigned to other high-priority projects, such as Common Assessment, Online Education, and MyPath, which will eventually house all the projects (portlets) in a single sign-on Portal environment.

The objective was to maintain the existing CCCApply (and Account) versions until we are ready to go to RFP on the replacement project (CCCApply 3.0 - responsive, localized, universal form building blocks, compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards, and integrated with MyPath SSP.

“Maintenance Mode” means that only bug fixes, state mandates, and high priority feature enhancements will be prioritized for development for/in the current version of CCCApply until some of the other projects are completed.

Development & IT Roadmap

2017-2018 Portfolio Roadmap (Public)

April 2017 - RFP for New / Upgraded CCC Web Applications
(CCC Software Development 

October 2017 - OpenCCC Upgrade - MyPath Integration

July 2017 - Report Center Upgrade to TIBCO/JasperSoft Subscription version

September 2017 - Launching New Administrator 2.0 (Multi-App Super Administrator)

2018 - Integration with Project Glue, Assess, MyPath, Course Exchange

2018 - MyPath Integration

Maintain Legacy Systems through 2019-2020

• OpenCCC Legacy
• CCCApply Legacy  (New CCCApply/IA/BOG integration
• Administrator Legacy  (CCC Administrator 2.0 under-development)
• Download Client Legacy (Universal College Adaptor under-development)

New DevOps Vendor - Infiniti

New Server Hosting Service - Amazon Web Services

• CCCApply servers move to Amazon (AWS) April 21, 2017
  • Continuous Deployment Model for 2017-2019
  • Maintain Annual Update Release for Downloads & Logic change
• CCC Report Center moves to Amazon (AWS) - Upgrade to TIBCO/JasperSoft Subscription Instructure

CCCApply Standard Application and OpenCCC Account

• • Approved Change Requests
    • Changes to Standard Application Data Download File
    • Changes to Standard Application Residency Logic
  • Accessibility & Security Enhancements (See Release Notes)
  • Bug Fixes & Technical Updates (See Release Notes)
  • Deferred & Declined Requests

CCC Administrator & CCC Report Center

• • Approved Change RequestsDocumentation Updates: 
  • • CCCApply Administrator User Guide
    • CCC Report Center User Guide

Board of Governors (BOG) Fee Waiver Application 

• • 2016-2017 Approved CCCCO Changes
  • 2017-2018 Approved CCCCO Changes
  • CCCApply.org Changes:  

    2016-20: Update Money & BOG Pages on CCCApply.org

International Application 

• • New Application Version Release Notes
  • New International Application Data Download File
  • New Change Requests

CCC SSO Proxy Integration 

• • CCCApply integration with Proxy 
  • Administrator / Jasper integration with Proxy
  • Proxy UI/UX Upgrade

Pilot (Beta) Environment

• • Applications & Downloads Server
  • Pilot Administrator
  • Pilot Report Center
  • /wiki/spaces/PD/pages/77562106

Development Roadmap

NOTE: OpenCCC Account System is NOT in maintenance mode and enhancements will continue to be developed as needed.

2017 Annual Update - Scheduled for March 31, 2017

CCCApply 3.0 RFP

(See below for more information about the RFP).

Development of the next version of CCCApply will be part of CCCTC Portal Software Development RFP

Timeline: First draft starting December 12; proposed release April 2017.

See notes below for more information about the CCCTC Portal Software Development RFP, which includes the re-design of CCCApply.  

2017-2018 BOG Fee Waiver Application:

Change requirements just received from CCCCO on 11/28/16

Significant changes required (Homeless Youth AB801 2015 Income; New Method B Income Table)

Release March 2017

Administrator 2.0

Development of new version of the CCCApply Administrator (2.0) underway

Scope of project includes multiple CCC applicatons with common objecst (Terms, Majors, Users, Rules, etc.)

Projects: Apply, BOG, International, Course Exchange, Assess, Project Glue, eTranscripts, and more

Requirements for Apply are still being gathered (Majors, Ed Goal Alignment, etc.),

Tentative release  v1 Fall 2017, RFP

OpenCCC Facelift (Phase I) vs. new development

OpenCCC will be revised as part of the RFP

In the meantime, development will begin to give OpenCCC a facelift (branding, colors, messaging)

Requirements are being written now; more information coming soon.

CCCApply Move to Amazon Web Services (Possible Date Change)

It's possible that our move from Rackspace to Amazon Web Services (all server hosting) may require some downtime.

During the November meeting we determined that the most optimal time to take CCCApply down would be Feb 17-18 (due to President's Day Holiday).

CTO is taking this under consideration; safety and security are of utmost importance.

Date for move is still pending.

CCC SSO Proxy

As part of the CCC SSO (Single Sign-On) Initiative, students will access all CCC web applications with one username and password.

In order to implement this, colleges are configuring their college or district IdP to pass specific attributes during each student sign-in session (CCCID & EPPN)

Colleges are working with the CCC Proxy team to configure their systems

The student experience requires some students to encounter the OpenCCC proxy, where students without CCCIDs will be asked to create an Account.

Information about the CCC SSO Initiative and the Proxy is documented in a public documentation space here:  CCC SSO Federation

A demo has been recorded to illustrate the Proxy.  Click here to see the demo.

If you have any questions about the Proxy, or the student experience, contact Patty Donohue, pdonohue@ccctechcenter.org

All OpenCCC & CCCApply Projects - 2017-2018

Development & Release Roadmap

Communication Schedule

Implementation Plan

Support & Training

Research & Marketing Projects

Documentation

Steering & Advisory Committees

Events & Conferences

CCCApply Standard Application & OpenCCC Student Account
 

Releases & Annual Update Schedule

 CCCApply refers to all applications in the suite: Standard, BOG & IA

Release / Update Cycle(s)

Since 2001, OpenCCCApply releases, including the CCCApply Annual Update release, have been carefully scheduled around low and peak-volume enrollment times through the academic year. Traditionally colleges prepare for one annual update per year in Mid to Late March (however, several releases have been performed be scheduled for as late as the first week in April).  
Supplemental releases are scheduled as needed.* 
 

Annual Update Release:  
Aligned to enrollment cycle; late March to early April (March 16 - April 7).  The 2017 release is scheduled for March 31, 2017.

Exceptions include: 

• Hot fixes and compliance issues and security breeches
• CCCCO mandates (BOG 2016) & legislative mandates as required 
• New development releases = International Application; uPortal, etc.
• Performance/stability enhancements that minimize blockers to college implementations (BOG Rules, stable QA/Beta environment, etc.)
  
  

Supplemental Releases
Only scheduled as needed, a supplemental CCCApply release is scheduled around the peak application season specifically during low risk times (mid to late September). 

Jan 30 - Feb 7

Sept 15 - Oct 7 (next best time for significant update)

May 15 (high-priority technical upgrades, security fixes, etc.)

There are traditional peak and low-volume enrollment times throughout the year, as well as cyclical events/processes that impact the workload of college IT staff.  After the March/April update, college enrollment is on blast until September 15 timeframe. All through the late spring and summer and into early Sept are high enrollment periods (kids getting ready to go back to school/Fall semester). There's a lull around mid-late September and early Oct, which would be next best time for a supplemental update. Late October is NOT advised.

Take away:  Stick with an annual Update schedule to align with college IT and Admissions peak periods. 

Change Management Approval Cycle

The annual change management and release cycle typically begins in April for the following year's annual update release. 

CCCApply Steering Committee

The CCCApply Steering Committee is comprised of 36 California Community College administrators and staff from Admissions & Records, Enrollment Services, Financial Aid, Institutional Research, IT, Student Services, and other Departments. Members are selected from colleges across the state, including northern, southern, Bay Area, eastern colleges, as well as large and small college (Update this for 2017).

Change Management Process

The product manager and support services collect and evaluate change requests for colleges and present them to the CCCApply Steering Committee at their bi-monthly meetings. The Committee will evaluate each request and approve, defer or decline the request based on need and how it affects the application for all colleges. Requests must meet the needs of all or the majority of colleges to be approved, such as state legislative mandates, state residency regulations, and CCCCO MIS reporting requirements. Change requests should be submitted to the Product Manager through the CCC College Support Site, www.ccctechnology.info and should a needs and benefits statement and supporting documentation.

2017 Approved Change Requests