TechEDge | California Community Colleges

eTranscript Success Story: Skyline College

Last Updated on Thursday, 12 August 2010 Written by Jen Gednalske Monday, 08 March 2010

In September of 2008, Skyline College went live with the eTranscript California pilot for the San Mateo Community College School District (SMCCD). eTranscript California, formerly CCCTran, is a Web-based electronic transcript system between California Community Colleges and their trading partners.

Skyline College, located in San Bruno, was chosen as the district’s pilot school because of its close proximity to their main transfer partner institution, San Francisco State University (SFSU). Despite a physical distance of only about ten miles between the institutions, the preference of SFSU for electronic transcripts was creating a virtual distance between the campuses.

“Even though we were the closest school to SFSU, we found that because we were still using paper transcripts, our students were being dealt with last,” Sherri Hancock, Dean of Enrollment Services at Skyline College, said. “Even though most of our students transfer to SFSU, their paper transcripts would be put in a pile to deal with after electronic transcripts were processes. That meant many of our students would not be evaluated as quickly as students coming from other colleges.”

Due to the close traditional partnership between Skyline and SFSU, the university was eager for the college to adopt an online transcript application. Skyline chose to wait for eTranscript California to be ready, preferring to implement an application that would be specifically designed for the needs of the California Community Colleges system. Skyline also won a grant to help with the implementation of eTranscript California.

“We didn’t just want to pick something from a vendor and have to live with it once a systemwide option was in place,” said Renée Cowing, Senior Programmer I in Information Technology Services (ITS) at SMCCD. “This way we got to work closely with the process and provide input as to our specific needs.”

The implementation of eTranscript California was a collaborative effort between Admissions and Records (A&R) at Skyline and ITS, located at the district office.

“Because most of the IT work is done at the district level, we don’t often get an opportunity to really work directly with each other on projects. The process was very efficient and smooth. Both offices met one day to design the transcript and go through the processes we needed to implement the system,” Hancock said.

Cowing said, ”Once in place, eTranscript California is so automatic, you don’t even know that it's there, except for the bi-weekly reports it generates.”

The Skyline A&R team has found the system to be practical and valuable. Transcripts are processed through an online request and then sent directly to the college. The students no longer have to wait for paperwork and hand carry or mail between offices. Transcripts get processed much sooner and students are enrolled much more quickly at their transfer institution.

Hancock lost the equivalent of two full time staff members in her department with hours cut back due to budget cuts. Her A&R team has still been able to manage processing transcripts despite the reduced staff.

“I don’t know how we would have been able to keep up with the paper transcripts,” Hancock said. “We have also seen an amazing increase in our transfer and processing statistics since the implementation.”

For more information on eTranscript California, please visit: http://etranscriptca.org.

 Jen Gednalske is a CCC Technology Center and California Virtual Campus Project Manager
and a TechEDge Editor.