2019-34: Colleges want access to In-Progress application data to support student success

Overarching Problem / Issue

Currently, the CCCApply application isn't designed to share in-progress application data with the colleges until the student has completed and submitted the full application. College A&R offices want access to student contact information and other application data before, during, and after the application is submitted for the purpose of conducting outreach and support to prevent abandonment as well as to identify potential pain points in the application, such as ambiguous language and questions. 

College and district Administrators, including researchers, also want this information (in-progress application data) for statistical / analysis purposes to better understand enrollment and track attrition.

College IT want access to in-progress data as early as possible.

Background Information on Business Need

While the majority of students complete the application without needing assistance, at-risk students, including undocumented, Spanish-speaking (ESL) students, minors, etc. are among those most likely to need support and assistance completing the application.  

Colleges have requested that information about the applicant be shared with them during the application process. so they can identify who has started an application for their college and if the applicant pauses/leaves the application before completion they can reach out to the applicant and provide support. 

College support services understand that some at-risk student populations may find some language ambiguous, particularly the legal language, and unwelcoming...thus preventing the student from abandoning the application. 

Not having the information they need to reach out to the student to offer support - creates a barrier by closing a communication channel and fails to help prospective students feel a sense of connection and competency and can contribute to feelings of isolation, confusion, and even incompetence at a time when a feeling of self-efficacy is essential to move forward.  Also, this is the high-risk point in the on-boarding process where students abandon the process because they do not understand the admission application language or requirements for admission. 

One of the project goals of the CCCApply Redesign project (read more below) is to:

• improve handoffs between the on-boarding tools developed by the CCC Tech Center and the tools, processes and people who guide the student experience at individual colleges.
• ResponsibleUseofStudentDatainHE.pdf

Benefits of Leveraging In-Progress Application Data

getting data to colleges earlier and more including getting data to colleges faster with more automation, is the ability for colleges to access student's in-progress application data in order to provide support and help the student through the application / on-boarding process.  

An ongoing concern raised by colleges using CCCApply is the inability to view/access in-progress applications in order to support students during the admissions process.

In order to provide pre-submission data to the college, we need student's Consent to release in-progress information and a mechanism to capture that consent (checkbox data field or flag)

implement a user-friendly, automated way to deliver the data to colleges through both data delivery methods (Download Client and Glue). Also colleges may need a user interface to view in-progress apps.

History of CCCApply & Shared Application Data

Sharing student application information - before, during, and after application submission - has been a high-priority request to the CCCApply system by a variety of CCC college, district, and system-wide stakeholders since 2012 - the year that master contract for the Xap Corporation to develop and resell the "CCCApply" admission application suite exclusively for the CCC Chancellor's Office.  Since 2001, the CCC Chancellor's Office, in partnership with the CCC Tech Centers (North & South) and the CCCApply Steering Committee - wrote and implemented the CCCApply residency algorithm code and published the CCCApply Data Dictionary - and the Xap Corporation developed the online application code for the domestic application, Spanish version application, the International application, and the CCCApply BOG Fee Waiver application.

Xap CCCApply

Included with the XapCCCApply application suite was the Xap Control Center which included the functionality to run a download job that included both in-progress- and submitted CCCApply applications. This functionality allowed colleges to see every application that was started (for their colleges) and thus follow up on any applications that were started but not submitted. 

At this time, it is unclear as to what the user interface looked like, but based on comments from college users and documentation, Admissions Office staff were able to run a report (line item) of each application started - that would include an Application ID and the user's name and contact information. 

This information was extremely valuable to the college Admissions Office for identifying and providing support for incomplete applications, but also to the financial aid office, student outreach, student equity, and other campus departments. Other use cases are still being identified as part of this research.

2011-2012: OpenCCCApply

In 2011-2012, the new OpenCCC student account system and the new CCCApply applications - fully owned and operated by the CCC Chancellor's Office and the CCC Technology Center, were launched across the California Community Colleges.  In 2013, Vice Chancellor Linda Michalowski, under the direction of the Board of Governors of the State of California, announced a grant to provide the OpenCCC And CCCApply systems to all California Community Colleges at no initial or recurring charge - thus saving the colleges hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of the following five years. 

Students

Primary Target:  Students who start applications and do not finish them in one sitting.  They hit a point in the application where they stop, save and leave the application.

Priority Need:  College A&R and student services staff need an immediate, user-friendly, way to view the in-progress applications, so they can reach out - right away - to help the student get through the application process.

Business Needs: Colleges need student's consent before they can view/see/collect the student's information.  

HOW:  Add a checkbox (data field) to the Enrollment page - right before or as they hit Continue or Save  (how this should look is being determined, meaning should this checkbox question appear on the page all the time or pop-up when the student clicks Continue or Save?)

The language in the Consent checkbox would include one of the statements below (drafts):

I authorize the California Community Colleges to release my contact information to one or more CCC colleges and/or affiliates that may wish to contact me before and/or after I have submitted my application to the College.

OR

I authorize CCCAPPLY to release my contact information to XXX COLLEGE and/or affiliates that may wish to contact me before, during, and/or after I have submitted my Application for Admission to this college.

Workflow: 

An application doesn't become an official application until AFTER the student completes the fields on the Enrollment page, and either Saves or Continues.  Is this the point where the In-Progress DB stores the data?

Following completion of the Enrollment page, Glue could send page-level chunks of information to the Student Profile, DW, and College SIS.  
(NOTE: If the DW is also considered the "CCCApply Report Center" - then a college could run a report at anytime to see applications that have been started, but not submitted, and contact the student.

What do we know about the student after they complete the Enrollment page?

All data is considered FERPA Directory Information

Data is available when the student starts a new application

Data is available when the student completes Enrollment page

Data can be 

• College Applying To (Apply)
• App Language (English or Spanish) through Enrollment page
• CCCID (OpenCCC)
• Legal, Preferred, and Previous Names (OpenCCC)
• Permanent Address (OpenCCC)
• Date of Birth (OpenCCC)
• SSN (maybe not after new OpenCCC design - check this out)
• Phone number (possibly depending on OpenCCC design)
• Whether they've authorized text messaging or not  (possibly depending on OpenCCC design)
• Email Address (OpenCCC)
• Term Applying for (Apply)
• Major / Intended Program of Study (Apply)
• Meta Major (Apply; Optional)
• Education Goal (Apply)

What don't we know/have?

• CCCApply doesn't have a way to text message from Apply (we can email, but not text message)
• We don't have timestamp for the time an App is started (student clicked "Start a New Application" button or clicked continue from new OpenCCC Account)
• We don't have timestamp at completion of Enrollment page
• We don't have a  consent indicator implemented for in-progress application data sharing
• We need to ensure "No" consent does not send data 
• Should students age 13 yro or younger not see consent indicator and do not share data?
• We don't have a way to display in-progress applications to colleges
• We don't track timestamps for students in their MyApplications page
• We don't track a timestamp when student resumes an in-progress application
• We don't track multiple timestamps - resume, pause, resume, pause, resume, complete
• We don't have way for colleges to see in-progress applications in the Administrator
• We don't have way for colleges to see in-progress apps in a report in the RC or DW?
• We don't have a way for colleges to customize a Message in the Administrator and create a rule to sent the message to an in-progress app student by text message or email
• WE don't have a way to merge custom Message from the Administrator into our "abandoned application email templates now" 
• We don't have a way to let the college customize when those are sent
• We don't have a way to embed a link to the in-progress application in an email or a Text message
• We don't have a wayt o embed a link to the student's My Application page in an email or a text message

This data could be enough for the college to contact the student and help them complete their application. 

Next steps:

Query colleges on what they need out of this project?
What are the goals for doing this?
What do you need in terms of data to accomplish these goals? 

A full account of all fields 
Subset of data fields

Research Questions

What happens now during our auto-population process?  Will all auto-filled data be sent to the college?

What is delivered from CCGI - how does this affect this process, if at all?

What is delivered from CDE - how does this affect this process, if at all?

(Jane Linder - 9.6.19 meeting - is working on a high-level flow chart of the data flowing from Account > Apply > chunks of data > to college)

Proposed Solution

In order to pass in-progress application data to the colleges using the current CCCApply applications, several changes would have to be implemented, including language disclosure, placement of language and mechanism to obtain consent, and new development to integrate real-time data with colleges via Super Glue or other automation method.

• Revise onscreen Consent page for current and mobile versions of Apply
• Update the Consent language in the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy*
• Add mechanism to obtain Consent (with language) on the Enrollment page or the My Applications page
• Explore different levels of consent at different points in the process (OpenCCC account creation, enrollment page, submission)
• Implement ability for data delivery using SuperGlue to allow colleges automated access to student data earlier in the application process
• Implement user interface or other mechanism for college Admissions staff to see in-progress application data 

• Adjust the current CCCApply Privacy Policy to include language that will disclose what we want to give college(s) and students, as well as "how".

• Implement an additional, legal, consent mechanism (pop-up box or question) where students are informed and provide consent to share data with college (directory information, in-progress application data, and full submitted application data) with the college they intend to apply to.

See "Revise Consent to Release Information Language in CCCApply" for second part of this project.

Background Information Supporting This Project

Ever since OpenCCCApply was developed under the CCCTC, colleges have requested the ability to see when a student starts an application to their college but doesn't complete / submit that application. The ability to see in-progress applications was previously delivered in the Xap CCCApply system in their administrator tool.  At the time OpenCCCApply was designed, this capability was removed based on the understanding that providing that data to the college prior to their consent to release information permission was obtained and submitted via electronic signature, that this process was an infringement on the student's privacy (per FERPA and ? what other legal organization or mandate?).

However, many other state and national admission application products are allowing colleges to see in-progress data (example CSU, and the Common Application) and therefore a call to implement similar functionality in CCCApply is being requested.

• Deliver CCCApply web app as a  stepping stone to on-boarding process
• Get colleges the data they need for Admissions (college operations)
• Get colleges the data they need for on-boarding
• Get colleges the data they need for residency
• Flexibility - move questions around - add defaults - tweak question and response option language - conditional questions/logic  (Survey Gizmo)
• Access to student information prior to submission -

Screenshots

Dependencies, Risks and/or Reporting Requirements?

Supporting Documentation