First Day

A new semester kicks off today! We have 10,830 enrollments (36,490 credit hours) in our 15 week term. That is 20% more than we had on the first day of classes last spring.

Students are already accessing classes so, if you have not already done so, please get those welcoming announcements and your own introductions posted. We have quite a lot of data concerning learner involvement and community building activities the first week of class and persistence throughout the course.

We've also had a few learner comments about consistency within the courses this morning, so please check again to ensure that your syllabus, schedule page, and gradebook all match. If you have trouble updating any of those pages please email profhelp@cccs.edu. It is your responsibility though to make sure your learners are getting a consistent message about gradeable items and due dates. We are also seeing some problems with assessments -- descriptions on the assignment pages not matching the descriptions in the learning modules. Be sure you have updated both areas if your assignments are described twice in the course shell.

The Course Readiness Checklist on the wiki has a concise list of items that should be checked before the term begins and is worth looking over in case you missed something last week.

Thanks Everyone! I am sure it is going to be another great semester.

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Late Registration Policy

Hi Everyone-

Here's the note that went out to college registrars from John Schmahl:

From CCCOnline Director, John Schmahl.

We are going to try a little experiment this semester. Students who want to register late, after Thursday, August 23, will need to complete an Late Add agreement form, https://www.ccconline.org/students/late_registration/, acknowledging the potential risks of registering late. Once they submit this form, it will come to John and Roxanne, who will then add the student into the appropriate course in INB. Basically, we have found in looking over figures from the last couple of years that students who register late are at a slightly higher risk of being unsuccessful. However, the risk was not as great as we had thought. Therefore, we are trying this change to see if we can better accommodate those students who need to register but are unable to within the regular registration timeline. We will see what the impact of this at the end of the semester and decide whether to continue it or change it for Spring.

Again, students will still not be able to register via SSB after Thursday, August 23, but by completing the Late Add form, https://www.ccconline.org/students/late_registration/, we will add them through INB until Thursday, August 30.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks!

John H Schmahl
Director, Student Services
CCCOnline
john.schmahl@cccs.edu
1.800.801.5040
http://ccconline.org

We will also poll all of you at the end of the term to find out whether or not the form sets expectations appropriately. :^)

Overall fall 1 enrollment is up about 10% over this day last year. Fall 2 enrollment is up about 30% over this day last year. There are some oddities -- enrollment increases in some areas and decreases in others, so it's not consistent with our past growth trends. We are very happy to see growth again though! Last year was traumatic for all of us!

Thanks!
Lisa

Last Day to Add a Class

Hi Everyone-

For years CCCOnline's last day for student's to add classes was the Friday before classes began. Last year we were forced to back that up to the Thursday before classes began (data loading issue).

While we have always said we never let in late students, in practice that hasn't been accurate. Some students did get to add a course the first day or three of the semester and some didn't -- it depended on their story and who they told it to.

So.... this year John Schmahl did some research around the success rates of students in relation to when they registered. It turned out that the students who register the last week of classes don't have a lower success rate than the students who register earlier. And when you look at the students who we allowed to add during the first week of classes --- no significant difference there either. (Success was defined as A,B, or C grade).

Given those results, we thought it was time to revise the late registration policy. Self-registration will still end on the Thursday before classes begin. Students who want to add after that will have to contact CCCOnline staff. We will go ahead and add those students through the first Thursday of classes, but we will also have them sign a late add acknowledgment form.

The form includes a few critical disclaimers. Among those: students need to order their required textbooks right away with overnight shipping. They need to pay their tuition bill within 24 hours. Students will need to catch up with the rest of the class immediately. And the all important "Faculty are not required or expected to allow late submission of assignments."

We will try this new version of our policy for a term and see if if causes complications. I don't really expect a sudden wave of late registrations as we will still try to talk students out of that. It should improve the consistency of treatment of students across staff member though and it makes sure students understand that they are responsible for catching up with a class they have started late.

best,
Lisa

(Picture is Elevenmile Reservoir, west of Colorado Springs)