What is C-ID?

The newly conceived Course Identification (C-ID) System is born of response to state needs expressed through adopted legislation, of response to broad and often unmet needs of the California Community College System, and of response to intersegmental faculty who seek comparability of courses for their students and for the career and technical education they provide within California’s post-secondary systems.

The C-ID System will expand upon the work of the now defunct California Articulation Numbering (CAN) System. CAN was intended “to develop, maintain, and disseminate a general common course numbering system for use by community college districts” and was established as an intersegmental program that would benefit students, faculty counselors, transfer center directors and articulation officers. However, withdrawal of the CSU and UC segments from the CAN System generated a need for a new course identification system that avoids duplication of efforts and meets the larger heretofore unmet needs of the community college system.

In response to the state requirements, and system and faculty needs remaining following the dissolution of CAN, the C-ID System seeks to fulfill the stated intent and aspirations of prior legislation (most recently SB 1415 and SB 1785); to provide a clear, uniform alternative numbering system for use in and among community colleges; to enhance articulation efforts and support transfer initiatives by providing universal descriptors for use by all public postsecondary institutions and their students; and to offer on-going and updated information to community college students regarding needed courses offered regionally that would serve their transfer or technical preparation progress.

This project also promises to address the needs of technical preparation programs and career ladders approaches by including such disciplines from the initial round of discipline reviews. Furthermore, this project explicitly plans for the interdisciplinary element missing in the original CAN processes, and it builds upon the IMPAC and LDTP work to clarify necessary major preparation for transfer to those institutions.

The C-ID System’s design would expand descriptors beyond the original CAN offerings and offer assurances to transfer partners that courses qualified through the C-ID process meet standards of rigor and currency essential for students seeking terminal degrees, certificates, or transfer. By offering opportunities for intersegmental collaboration that demonstrate interdisciplinary respect, this project offers university transfer initiatives a chance to avoid unnecessary duplicative efforts.