Distance education expands higher education opportunities beyond the walls of the traditional classroom. Online and partially online (hybrid) courses serve over one million community college students annually, providing flexible learning options using online modalities. For students who must balance the realities of work schedules, family obligations and commuting challenges, distance education is critical for educational attainment and success. By incorporating research-based pedagogical strategies, effective course design standards and “regular and substantive interaction” engagement principles, online education provides students with high-quality educational experiences and accelerates the accomplishment of students’ educational goals.
California Virtual Campus
The California Community Colleges are at the forefront of online education, and the California Virtual Campus (CVC) expands access to courses beyond their locality of a student’s home college. Through the CVC, students have access to high-quality online courses through a collaborative effort involving dozens of community colleges across the California Community Colleges system. Sponsored by the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, the California Virtual Campus facilitates student enrollments across the state and delivers a comprehensive program incorporating effective practices and technology to significantly increase the number of college degrees earned in California.
@ONE – Online Network of Educators
The Online Network of Educators (@ONE) is the California Community Colleges’ professional development hub for online teaching and learning. Serving faculty, staff and administrators, @ONE offers courses, workshops, webinars, self-paced courses and on-demand resources to promote quality, equity, accessibility and student success. Through the Peer Online Course Review (POCR) program, @ONE assists colleges in designing and continuously improving high-quality online courses.
To meet the evolving needs of course quality standards, @ONE recently introduced the 2027 Online Course Design Rubic and accompanying Transition Hub, providing implementation guidance, training, companion resources and planning tools to help colleges transition to the updated rubric. This rubric, using research-based principles, is designed to support high-quality teaching and learning by guiding efforts to incorporate online education strategies that are inclusive, supportive and aligned with student success outcomes.
Distance Education Biennial Report for 2023‑25
The Chancellor provides a report to the Board of Governors every two years that evaluates the effectiveness of distance education and education technology systemwide and provides analysis of data demographically (by age, disability, ethnicity, and gender) student accessibility to instruction, and enrollment and completion rates.
