UPDATE: Distance Education Courses At California Community Colleges

Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 February 2012 Written by Sandoval Chagoya Wednesday, 09 November 2011

The following chart compares the number of distance education courses offered by campuses and centers in the California Community Colleges system statewide. Where does your college rank?

This chart is based solely on data relevant to the California Community Colleges in the California Virtual Campus Distance Education Catalog. It was updated on November 17, 2011. The course count for San Diego Miramar College was corrected, and the chart title was amended to reinforce the source of the data. Please review the text beneath the chart for a discussion of how data is collected.

Requests for further changes should be sent to Sandoval Chagoya, CVC Project Manager, at schagoya@cccnext.net.

California Community Colleges: Distance Education Courses Based solely on data in the CVC Distance Education Catalog

The CVC Distance Education Catalog includes more than 19,000 courses and 700 degree programs offered by more than 170 accredited postsecondary institutions in California. The CVC Distance Education Catalog counts courses rather than sections. The catalog was updated in September of this year. Data was gathered from information available publicly or was submitted by each institution.

Because this information is subject to almost constant change, this chart is offered as a snapshot rather than an absolute.

In the coming months, the CVC will release charts similar to this based on the data in the catalog. Charts will include comparisons of distance education degree programs and comparisons of offerings by all segments of higher education in California, including the University of California, California State University, and independent colleges.

For now, any observations about this chart? We find the normalized distribution a bit surprising.

Where does your college rank? Are you surprised by your ranking? Do your distance education offerings meet the needs of your students?

Does your campus place enough emphasis and effort on distance education? Or is there too much emphasis on this area?

Feel free to share your answers via the comment feature below.

And while you are at it, why not participate in the TechEDge front page poll: "In your opinion is distance education a priority on your campus?"<>

Sandoval Chagoya is the TechEDge Managing Editor and a Project Manager for the
California Community Colleges Technology Center and the California Virtual Campus.

Comments (Feed)

Skip to Add Comment

  • 0 #

    Instructor

    — Donna Eyestone 2011-11-11 08:29
    I would love to see a chart that was somehow weighted where it could show # of online classes vs. total number of classes offered. It seems hard to compare tiny colleges against huge colleges.

    But this is interesting. Good work Palomar College! Are there any colleges in the system that offer no online classes?
    Reply | Reply with quote | Quote
    • 0 #

      Great Idea

      — Sandoval Chagoya 2011-11-11 10:45
      Hi, Donna: Good point regarding college size and total course offerings. Let me work on that chart.

      I will also look for an answer to your question.

      I note the absence of some colleges in the chart in this story, but need to verify before venturing an answer.

      Thanks.

      ~Sandoval, Editor, CCC TechEDge News
      Reply | Reply with quote | Quote
  • 0 #

    From the editor

    — Sandoval Chagoya 2011-11-14 08:47
    Readers: We have had contact from colleges regarding course count as represented in the current chart. We will also label the chart more clearly to indicate that it is based solely on the CVC distance education catal0g. This chart will be updated soon. Stay tuned ...

    ~Sandoval, Editor, CCC TechEDge News
    Reply | Reply with quote | Quote
  • 0 #

    Dean, Online and Distributed Learning, SDCCD

    — Andrea Henne 2011-11-15 17:33
    The data for Miramar College are incorrect. The California Virtual Campus catalog links to the Miramar College online class schedule, which shows 149 online classes in Fall 2011.
    Reply | Reply with quote | Quote
    • 0 #

      Miramar and Courses vs. Sections

      — Sandoval Chagoya 2011-11-16 07:51
      Thank you, Andrea Henne, for helping us to correct the CVC catalog. Due to a technical error, we did not import Miramar's courses in our latest update. That has been corrected in the catalog and will be corrected in this chart when updated this week.

      The correction brought Miramar's course count up to 258. This number is different from the Fall 2011 schedule of online classes because we count unique course offerings once, rather than counting sections, and because in the recent update, we used all available information, not just the Fall 2011 schedule.

      ~Sandoval, Editor, CCC TechEDge News
      Reply | Reply with quote | Quote
    • 0 #

      Miramar College Course Count Corrected

      — Sandoval Chagoya 2011-11-17 12:01
      Hello, Andrea: Just a short note to let you know the catalog was updated on November 17 to reflect the correct count for San Diego Miramar College. Thank you for pointing out the error.

      ~Sandoval, Editor, CCC TechEDge News
      Reply | Reply with quote | Quote
  • 0 #

    From the editor

    — Sandoval Chagoya 2012-02-15 16:55
    Readers: We have had contact from colleges regarding course count as represented in the current chart. We will also label the chart more clearly to indicate that it is based solely on the CVC distance education catalog. This chart will be updated soon. Stay tuned ...

    ~Sandoval, Editor, CCC TechEDge News
    Reply | Reply with quote | Quote

Add comment