Problem and Business Need

Research conducted over the past two years by the Student Equity Planning workgroup and the Chancellor's Vision for Success  has resulted in a system-wide focus on closing equity gaps. Historical MIS data sets, however, do not include all ethnic groups that are relevant for the diverse and distinct communities served by the 115 California community colleges.

There is a business need to expand the categories of race and ethnicity that are collected via CCCApply and in the International application. For example, State Center College has a sizable Hmong population in its service area. However, their ability to conduct research, identify equity gaps, and direct resources in ways that will effectively close those gaps has been impeded because “Hmong” is not an ethnicity category that is collected on the standard application. We need to expand the ethnicity group data collected in CCCApply and make that data available via the statewide MIS. 

This system-wide need to close the equity gaps was the impetus for the Ethnicity-Ancestry Expansion Project 2018, and the foundation of this change request. 

Proposed Solution

In summary this proposal will expand the categories of ethnicity/ancestry collected in CCCApply, and includes a detailed set of requirements for a redesign to the layout and the specific ethnicity values and race groups that should be added.

According to one of the authors of the proposal, Craig Hayward, Dean of Institutional Research at Bakersfield College:

The idea is to add one additional high-level category (Middle Eastern/North African) which would roll up into "White" for federal IPEDS reporting (as it currently does). The other groups would only be made visible if someone selected a high level group like "Asian"; then they would see all of the possible sub-categories for Asian.  Work on this proposal has been ongoing with various stakeholder groups around the state for the past year or so.

Responding to the ethnicity question (will remain) optional, and the expanded number of categories will be unobtrusive as the detailed subgroups will only be seen when one of the higher-level categories is selected first. This proposal is compliant with federal reporting requirements as all subgroups can be easily rolled up into the required federal ethnicity and race reporting categories. For example, the new high-level group, Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) rolls up into the “White” category for federal reporting purposes. Most importantly, information gathered from the expanded categories will allow colleges and districts to identify equity gaps and work to alleviate them by allowing for enhanced targeting of resources and services—thereby empowering CCC stakeholders to rise the challenge, laid out in the Vision for Success, of reducing and eventually closing all equity gaps by 2027.

Click here: Ancestry proposal 2.43.xlsx

Additional Information

Ethnicity/Ancestry Expansion Proposal

This proposal is based on over two years of research and dialogue by the Student Equity Planning workgroup and the Chancellor's Vision for Success.  The proposal is clearly explained in the "Ethnicity-Ancestry Expansion Proposal".  See an excerpt below. 

"Currently, the CCC system collects information on 21 distinct ethnicity or ancestry categories. For comparison purposes, consider that the CSU system collects data on 113 categories while the UC system collects data on 73 categories. CCCApply collects ethnicity information by first asking applicants if they are Hispanic or Latino.  Respondents who select “Yes” then see an expanded set of more specific options to choose from. This the same mechanism that the proposed expansion will use to ensure that the collection of the additional, more specific ethnic groups is minimally disruptive to the application process."

Additional Info: SSSP Memo Excerpt

Excerpts from Student Success and Support Program re Student Equity SEC. 6. Article 1.5 (commencing with Section 78220) is added to Chapter 2 of Part 48 of Division 7 of Title 3 of the Education Code, to read:

Legacy Design and Functionality

CCCApply Standard and International applications currently collect race and ethnicity information by first asking applicants if they are Hispanic or Latino. Respondents who select “Yes” then see an expanded set of more specific options to choose from. From there, applicants are asked what their race is and given limited high level categories to choose from. The original implementation, which aligns to historic MIS requirements, has not been updated in many years and the data sets do not include all ethnic groups that are relevant for the diverse and distinct communities served by the 115 California community colleges.

Current Race & Ethnicity Section - Before 6.3.0

CCCApply Standard Application	Current Database Values	International Application

CCCApply Standard Application	Current Database Values	International Application
(Before new Race & Ethnicity implementation - 6.3.0)	(Before new Race & Ethnicity implementation 6.3.0)	(Before new Race & Ethnicity implementation - 6.3.0)
Open	Hispanic/Latino (hispanic_latino):  Race Group (race_group):  01: Hispanic, Latino - (From ‘Are you Hispanic / Latino?’ drop-down menu selection) 02: Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano 03: Central American 04: South American 05: Hispanic: Other Race Ethnicity (race_ethnicity):  06: Asian: Indian 07: Asian: Chinese 08: Asian: Japanese 09: Asian: Korean 10: Asian: Laotian 11: Asian: Cambodian 12: Asian: Vietnamese 13: Asian: Filipino 14: Asian: Other 15: Black or African American 16: American Indian / Alaskan Native 17: Pacific Islander: Guamanian 18: Pacific Islander: Hawaiian 19: Pacific Islander: Samoan 20: Pacific Islander: Other 21: White	Open

General Requirements

In addition to the requirements expressed in the Ethnicity-Ancestry Expansion Proposal, it was also important that these changes incur no impact on the colleges, particularly with regards to their existing MIS reporting processes. 

Objectives:

• Backward Compatibility - No change to existing data downloads:  Implement the new expanded race and ethnicity categories without changing the existing formats and data output; keeping the download files unchanged and seamlessly backwards compatible.

• Minimal impact on colleges: Ensure that the Race Ethnicity field <race_ethnic> specifically is unchanged; this is the field that most closely aligns to the MIS requirement (SB29).

• Optional New Data Field: Ensure that all new data values, including new race groups & ethnicities are collected in one new field that colleges can choose if and when to add to their downloads or not;

Mock Up & Screenshots: New Layout Design

• Hispanic/Latino Question Auto-populated

• Hispanic/Latino Question Expanded Showing All Hispanic/Latino Subcategory Values

• Asian Race Group Expanded Showing All Asian Subcategory Values

• More Race Groups Expanded Showing Subcategory Values

New Race/Ethnicity Section Screenshot

Open

Proposed Functional Mock Up Design

Attached is a functional Excel spreadsheet mockup for how this new layout and functionality should be in both the CCCApply and International Applications.

Click here: Ancestry proposal 2.43.xlsx

Zoom Demo: New Race & Ethnicity Layout 

Change Specifications: Layout & Database Values

Consistent with the original version, the new Race & Ethnicity section includes two sub-sections: 1) Hispanic/Latino section, which includes a Yes/No question: "Are you Hispanic or Latino?" question, which also serves as the high-level race group, and a sub-set of more specific ethnicities to choose from, and 2) Six high-level race groups, which when selected expand to display a set of more specific options, or ethnicities, to choose from.

Race/Ethnicity Section Header

The Race & Ethnicity section heading label is Race/Ethnicity that displays above the Hispanic/Latino section on the "Demographic Information" page. This did not change from the original (legacy) layout. 

Hispanic/Latino Section 

The following text appears above the Hispanic/Latino Yes/No question. Respondents that answer Yes will see an expanded set of 19 Hispanic/Latino ethnicities to choose from. Many of these ethnicity options are new and can be downloaded in the new field: <race_ethnic_full> 

 Hispanic/Latino Database Values

There is no change to the Hispanic/Latino database values or data format.  Response to question "Are you Hispanic or Latino?"

Section 2: Race Groups & Ethnicities

Below the Hispanic/Latino section, display the following additional instructive text and display the following set of high-level Race Groups adjacent to corresponding checkboxes. 

"Check all of the ethnicity and ancestry groups that you identify with. When you select a major ethnicity group, you will have the option to select more specific ancestry groups. Select all that apply."

• Asian

• American Indian or Alaska Native

• Black or African American

• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

• Middle Eastern or North African

• White

Respondents who select one or more of the Race Groups checkboxes will then see the expanded associated subgroups. Respondents may select as many race groups and ethnicity subgroups as needed. When a box is checked an accordion expansion should reveal the associated subgroups. When a box is unchecked, the accordion expansion should roll up to no longer show the subgroups.

Race Groups & Ethnicities Database Values

The following table shows a breakdown of the subgroups tied to each ethnic group, as well as the DB value associated in parenthesis. 

Release Information for Colleges

The Race & Ethnicity Implementation 2018 is a significant revision to the current, highly-regulated Race & Ethnicity section in CCCApply which is protected by federal law, the Office of Civil Rights, and aligns to various MIS (SB29) and IPEDs (STD10) reporting requirements. The new implementation will be in place before the MIS requirements are updated in Fall 2019. 

CCCApply's objective for this implementation is twofold:

1. Provide colleges with the same data fields and formats they were getting in the original (legacy) implementation.

2. Provide a new field with all the new race groups and ethnicity/ancestry subcategories collected in the new layout and disaggregation categories.

We understand that several of the existing race & ethnicity fields (race_group; race_ethnic) align to MIS data elements (and other derived data elements) and colleges have configured data files to map to those MIS requirements. Throughout this implementation, we made it a priority to maintain the existing data output formats and leave these fields unchanged for this purpose. 

In-Progress Applications

For In-Progress applications, there will be no database value mappings. If an application is in-progress at the time of release - and a student had already selected a race/ethnicity, the user will be presented with a client-side error validation message upon resuming that application that advises them of the following:

The Race and/or Ethnicity you have selected is no longer valid. Please go back to the Demographic Information tab and select a new value.

The user should not be able to submit the Apply or International application unless they have chosen a valid database value(s) for race_group and race_ethnicities. Once the new value is chosen, we will store the new value.

Data Formats & Downloads

The new Race & Ethnicity implementation (layout and data) is designed so as to not require colleges to make any changes to their jar file/download client and should be seamlessly backwards compatible. 

The current database is set up to support 21 specific race groups and race ethnicities. With the addition of more and new race_groups and race_categories, we needed to assign new database values to the new race groups and race ethnicities while maintaining the integrity of the existing race_group and race_ethnicity values.

The fields "hispanic", "race_group", and "race_ethnic" (Apply)/"race_ethnicity" (Intl) will remain unchanged. We are adding an additional database column called "race_ethnic_full" which will store the values the user selects for both higher level ethnic groups and the associated sub groups presented in the new UI and in the chart above.  From a download file perspective, colleges should only have to touch their download files if they want to add the new field <race_ethnic_full>, capturing all the new groups and sub-category values.

The fields "hispanic", "race_group", and "race_ethnic"(Apply)/"race_ethnicity" (Intl) are calculated from the user's selections and made available to the college using the same format as previous versions of the applications.

Detailed Field Notes

Hispanic

Data Element: <hispanic>

Notes: No changes, this field is a boolean true/false field that continues to work as in previous version

Example Format: boolean (true/false/null)

Race Group

Data Element: <race_group>

Notes: No changes, this field was intentionally left unchanged

Example Format: Apply: "04, 05, 08, 09, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21", International:  "04,05,08,09,14,15,17,19,20,21" (note lack of spaces for Intl)

Maximum Expected Width: 78 characters (unchanged) (20 * 2 character long values + 18 commas + 18 spaces  + 2 surrounding quote marks for CSV delimiting in the output format)

Race Ethnicity

Data Element: <race_ethnic> (Apply) /  <race_ethnicity> (International)

Notes: No changes, this field was intentionally left unchanged

Example Format: YNYNNNNYNNNNNNNNNYNNN

Maximum Expected Width: 22 characters (unchanged) (22 character long string)

Race Ethnicity Full

Data Element: <race_ethnic_full>

Notes: race_ethnic_full is a new field that will store the CSV separated values for all the ethnicity section selections for both the higher level ethnic groups and the associated sub groups as listed above in the chart.

Example Format: "100,101,117,118,200,205,08,09,500,15,600,601,17,19,602,700,701,713,800,802,803"

Maximum Expected Width: 804 characters (201 * 3 character long values + 199 commas + 2 surrounding quote marks for CSV delimiting in the output format)

College Adaptor Data Element

For GLUE, the new race_ethnic_full data element is called "raceEthnicFull"

Changes by Section

Reference: MIS Data Elements 

MIS Data Element	MIS Derived Data Element

MIS Data Element	MIS Derived Data Element
SB29 - Multi-Ethnicity	STD10 - Student -Ethnicity (Derived Data Element)  Used for IPEDs reporting
Open	Open

Updated Data Dictionary Tables

Race/Ethnicity