Aligning ICT Courses with C-ID in Orange County

It’s no secret that ICT course offerings within the California Community College system appear a big fragmented. A report issued by the Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technologies Center (MPICT) as well as data gathered and analyzed by the ICT Sector team has revealed that there are more than 600 different associate degree options with over 400 names. More than 1,500 different certificates were found having approximately 1,100 different names.

Steve Linthicum, Deputy Sector Navigator in Orange County has written extensively about this on his personal blog, and is taking steps in his region to create an identifiable, consistent pathway for students seeking careers in ICT.

“Our responsibilities as community college faculty include providing our students with a defined pathway that will allow them to carry the label ‘successful completer’ as they work towards their intermediate or final education goals,” writes Linthicum.

In order to accomplish this, Linthicum is working to align ICT courses at Orange County colleges with the Information Technology/Information Systems (ITIS) line of courses identified on the C-ID website. As this effort gains traction, Linthicum plans to work with the Los Angeles region colleges to do the same.

His first step was to determine which colleges have already aligned with C-ID. After making a chart with information gathered from the C-ID website, Linthicum set out to tackle one college at a time, making his way down his alphabetized list. However, in speaking with faculty at Long Beach City College, an opportunity presented itself. Instructors were interested in establishing a foundation account for student “scholarships.”

“The thought process we’ve come up with is providing stipends to faculty for their work associated with modifying curriculum so that it gets the C-ID course identification designation, and in turn, faculty direct that the earned payment be directed to the College’s foundation account that will be established for their department,” Linthicum said.

This approach impacts the LA/OC region in two meaningful ways:

1. It expands the number of colleges offering courses with the ITIS C-ID designation, resulting in course portability across the community college system, and a better chance of developing a framework of courses for transfer into four-year colleges and universities.

2. It provides the department faculty with the ability to provide scholarships for students which could be used to help pay for certification exams.

For more information about aligning ICT courses with the ITIS C-ID designation, contact Steve Linthicum at .