El Camino College recently joined the consortium of the California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative (OEI). In an effort to scale its commitment to online student access and success, the OEI has expanded the number of colleges in its consortium. Each of the new colleges devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to completing a self-assessment process leading to their selection. All of the 33 consortium colleges will help expand online program offerings while also presenting opportunities for student access to online courses needed to complete their educational journeys.
In November 2017, El Camino College responded to a call for colleges wishing to join the consortium. Self-assessments were reviewed for programmatic contributions, local need, technical infrastructure, adoption of existing resources, and demographic information.
Since the inception of the OEI, many California Community Colleges have been working together to address online achievement gaps and increase student access to fully-resourced online courses that propel them toward completion. During this time, the system has seen the average gap between face-to-face and online success rates narrow to less than six percent, and data shows OEI pilot courses moving nearly five percentage points above the statewide average success for the online modality. There are many components now deployed within and beyond the OEI Consortium that are benefitting students and colleges in the system, including Canvas, online tutoring and counseling platforms, online student readiness resources, proctoring, professional development, and more.