Community college students all over California might have the option of taking online classes from any CCC campus. Though this process is still in the works, eights colleges have been selected to participate in the Online Education Initiative.

The selected campuses are Mt. San Jacinto College, Butte College, Coastline Community College, Foothill College, Shasta College, Fresno City College, and Ventura College. The project will take place from Fall 2014 to Spring 2016.

Schools participating in the program were chosen for multiple reasons, such as their accreditation and the quality of their online degree programs. The OEI also announced an online associate degree for transfer in several different programs such as criminal justice, psychology, anthropology and many more.

There has been a dream to have an online campus since the late ’90s, according to Pat James, the new executive director of the CCC Online Education Initiative. The online world of education has been around for more than 20 years. In 2013 and 2014 there were only 41,000 online courses available to 620,000 students statewide.

The rate of online education remains low. Supporters of the OEI hope that by bringing in more advances to technology, there will be better online student success rates.

Also in the world of online education there are several different course management systems and up to ten different subclasses within the community college system. The OEI will make the change to only one course management system to simplify things for students taking multiple courses.

On campus, students had mixed reactions to the OEI.

“I get really busy with work, so taking more classes online would make my life a whole lot easier.” Leo Gi, a second year student said.

He hopes to pick up more hours at work while being able to continue his education in the best way possible for him, which would be taking online courses.

Reshmina Prasad a student who has taken most of her classes on campus, feels differently.

“I feel like online classes will make students a lot more lazier, because they are not required to come to a physical class here on campus,”

Teachers on campus also have a say about the Online Education system. Sarita Santos an early childhood education teacher who has on campus classes as well as online, supports the world of online education.

“I have a student now who lives in Sacramento, and I have another student who just moved to Michigan, but is taking my online 212 class,” Santos said.

She also thinks that for every Early childhood education class that is offered, there should be an option of an online version of the class, not to take away the physical class on campus, but to give the option to students. Santos, when teaching an online class, does not intend to meet those students in person, but she does post videos online so her students are able to see and hear her voice.