Scaling Online Student Success and Equity
in California Community Colleges
a resource provided by the California Virtual Campus (CVC), an initiative funded by the California Community College Chancellor's Office
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Overview
Overview
The California Virtual Campus (CVC) is a Chancellor's Office-funded initiative that increases access to high quality online courses to students. Online courses remove structural barriers that leave out students who do not have the privilege to be on campus or predict their schedules from week-to-week. Access is critical to serving our students, but access alone does not equate to equity.
California Community Colleges (CCCs) serve the largest and most diverse group of students in the nation; two out of three students are a person of color and the majority of colleges are Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Community colleges are where students from marginalized groups choose to come to start or restart their college journey. Ensuring all students feel valued, respected, and supported in every step of their journey, regardless of whether that experience occurs on campus or online, is essential to achieving the Chancellor's Office Vision for Success and the implementation of Guided Pathways.
The CVC Framework for Equitable, Effective Online Education is a resource to support college administrators, faculty, and staff in scaling a distance education program that is integrated into and supported across the institution.
The framework is guided by the California Community College's commitment to student equity and success. Colleges that utilize this framework will ensure students are supported through the administration of online programs comprised of robust online student services and culturally responsive, anti-racist, and accessible online instruction.
Colleges are encouraged to utilize the online instruction and online student services success cards to conduct self-assessments and the related resources to plan and guide continuous improvement.
FAQs
FAQs
Why do we need this framework when we already have Local POCR?
While Local POCR addresses quality course design, there is still a need to examine our colleges' overall framework and infrastructure for online education. Even if Local POCR is going well (and we know it is!) how do student services play a role? Are online counseling, library services and tutoring appointments readily available to students? Does the college have an organizational structure that provides resources for quality online programs (such as staffing, personnel and budgets)? Is there a plan for technology infrastructure? Is there a plan or structure for ongoing faculty development? These are all questions that the CVC Framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity can support, but which are not necessarily addressed by the Local POCR process.
Is the CVC Course Design Rubric going away?
The Course Design Rubric will remain in place as a proven resource for online course design. It will continue to be a cornerstone for Local POCR and for quality online course design.
How will this framework be used with the CVC Course Design Rubric?
The CVC Framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity has three main sections: Administration, Online Instruction and Online Student Services. The CVC Course Design Rubric (and the Local POCR process) falls under the Online Instruction section. Colleges can continue to engage with the Course Design Rubric via Local POCR as a way to support faculty in designing strong online courses and to build their local infrastructure for quality online programs.
Will CVC require colleges to adopt this framework?
Colleges definitely don't need another mandate, nor is it the CVC's role to mandate or require anything from the colleges. Rather, we are here to support, train, lead, and serve the colleges. The CVC will not require adoption of the CVC Framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity. Just as Peer Online Course Review (POCR) and use of the Course Design Rubric have always been optional practices for colleges, colleges are free to choose to adopt the new CVC Framework.
How might a college use the framework?
At the center of CVC’s Scaling Online Student Success & Equity framework is a comprehensive set of quality standards based on the Online Learning Consortium’s Quality Scorecards and contextualized for the California community college system. These standards are intended as a resource that colleges can use to conduct self-assessments in several domains: Administration (including technology infrastructure), instruction (including local professional development), and student services. The standards are accompanied by a suite of supports including companion guides with information regarding success metrics, effective practices and case studies. The goal? Beyond helping colleges to find and mitigate gaps, the self-assessment process will support ongoing improvement and institutional accreditation, ultimately promoting online student success and equity.
How does CVC envision this framework generating more institutional support for distance education?
The CVC Framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity self-assessment requires a deep-dive into the specifics of how a college operates. It asks the college team to self-assess topics such as whether the institution's mission reflects a commitment to online learning, whether it has a strategic plan for online education, whether there is sufficient resource allocation—including personnel and financial resources—dedicated to online programming, whether there is a process in place to ensure technology support, and whether there is a feedback and assessment method for continuous improvement of the college's infrastructure for online support. Inevitably, these questions spark helpful and intense conversations at the campuses where they are applied, and lead to thoughtful conversations about how to improve online programs.
If this framework is representing "quality" then what will become of the "quality" badge applied to aligned courses in the Course Exchange?
Currently the Quality Reviewed badge on CVC's Course Exchange indicates alignment with the Course Design Rubric. If our stakeholders eventually recommend an additional quality badge related to the CVC Framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity at the institution level, the CVC would consider that. The point of that badge would be to communicate to students on the Exchange that certain colleges have done the hard work of examining, assessing and addressing their institution's support systems and infrastructure to ensure quality online courses and support for them.
How does this framework tie into/support Guided Pathways?
Guided Pathways (GP) is a framework that seeks to approach college from the point of view of the student, and promotes clear course-taking patterns, directions and decision-making for students. The framework explicitly supports the three pillars of GP: Entering the Path, Staying on the Path and Ensuring Learning. Colleges engaged in the GP process would benefit from adopting this framework to ensure that online students have the same structured experiences as their on-campus counterparts. In fact, GP funding could be a great way to dedicate some time and energy to the Scaling Online Student Success and Equity self-assessment process.
How does this framework support the Vision for Success?
The California Community College Chancellor's Office (CCCO) Vision for Success emphasizes seven core commitments: focusing relentlessly on students' end goals, designing and deciding with the student in mind, pairing high expectations with high support, fostering the use of data and inquiry, taking ownership of goals and performance, enabling action and thoughtful innovation, and partnering across the systems. Having colleges examine, assess, rethink and reimagine their systems to ensure quality online programs is very much aligned with all of these commitments. For example, many of the standards around Administration for this framework ask the institution to reflect upon their structures, strategic plans and governance models to examine whether they state values around student support, access, and success. The standards for course development (under Instruction) ask colleges to assess the availability of tools for student collaboration and technical support. The section for evaluation and assessment (under Administration) asks colleges to state their processes for collecting data, ensuring student retention in online courses, as well support services, course evaluations and accessibility. All of these examples align with the Vision for Success, as they are related to supporting students through their educational journey, using data, enabling action and designing with the students' end goals in mind.
How does this framework support equity?
Ensuring opportunities and success for all students, regardless of their background or cultural capital, through policies, structures and support is the core value of everything we do as educators. However, equity doesn't just start in the classroom. It is also woven into our decisions and practices around our course development processes, design, support structures, technology infrastructure, investments, and student services. Organizational structures, budgets, priorities, policies and decision-making all reflect our commitment to equity. The CVC Framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity intentionally draws attention to these often invisible forces that can support (or hinder) students in online courses and programs.
How does this framework support accessibility?
Attention to accessibility is woven into the CVC Framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity framework in multiple places: the Administration section specifically asks the institution about a process for vetting the accessibility of adopted educational technologies. Under the evaluation and assessment section (also under Administration), the college is asked about the process for compliance and review of accessibility standards. The course development and instructional design section (under Instruction) calls out the institution's policies for ensuring that instructional materials are easily accessible to the student and easy to use, with the ability to be used in multiple operating systems and applications. There are other standards that address Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and alternative instructional strategies for students with disabilities. Of course, the Peer Online Course Review framework and the Course Design Rubric already heavily emphasize accessibility standards as part of the quality review for design.
How will data collection/research play into the use of this framework?
After establishing an initial framework for Scaling Online Student Success and Equity, the CVC will support a small number of colleges during a pilot of the program to assess its effectiveness. This initial pilot will help us to collect data (both qualitative and quantitative) about the effectiveness of the framework, needed improvements, and areas of strength. As we continue to scale out use of the framework, we will consult our work group, stakeholders and pilot colleges for the best ways to collect and share data.
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