Glossary of Terms
This page provides clear definitions for key concepts and metrics commonly used in institutional research, student success analysis, and academic reporting. Use this glossary of terms to better understand the terminology that supports data-driven decision-making.
ACCs: Academic and Career Communities
ACES: Academic Community Employability Skills
APs: Administrative Procedures
Asynchronous: An instruction type that allows for flexible and self-paced online instruction with no required meeting times/days.
BPs: Board Policies
CCC: California Community Colleges
CCCCO: California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
Census Enrollment: A student active in the class as of the census date. For classes without a census date (open-entry/exit), a census enrollment includes a student active in the class at any point between the start and end of the class.
Consortium: Composed of representatives of various California Community Colleges, the Consortium provides guidance and recommendations on operational, policy, and technical matters statewide.
Disproportionate Impact: When a specific student group, defined by characteristics such as race, gender, age, or disability, consistently experiences significantly lower outcomes compared to the overall student population.
Excluded Grades: Grades DR (System Deregistration), EW (Excused Withdrawal), MW (Military Withdrawal), RD (Reporting Delayed), and UG are not factored in success or retention rates.
FERPA: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
Headcount or Unique Students: The count of unduplicated students. This can vary depending on what is being evaluated, such as enrollments by year, term, ACC, subject, program, etc.
Hybrid: A course modality in which a student attends a portion of the course live and in-person and one portion of the course asynchronously online (generally split 50/50).
Hyflex: A course modality in which a student may choose to attend a portion of a live, in-person course remotely and online.
ICON: In-Class, and Online - what Chaffey calls hyflex.
LTC: Low-Textbook Cost
MIS Data Mart: Publicly available information about students, courses, student services, outcomes and faculty and staff provided by the CCCCO.
OER: Open Educational Resources
Online: A course modality that is fully online, can be synchronous or asynchronous.
Persistence: A student's continuous enrollment from one primary term to the next. Can be represented as a rate.
POCR: Peer Online Course Review
Retained Grades: A grade of A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, D+, D, D-, F, P, NP, IP, and FW. Grades of IA, IB, IC, IF, and IPP are not assigned at Chaffey College but would typically be considered retained grades.
SIS: Student Information System
Successful Grades: A grade of A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, P, and IP. Grades of IA, IB, IC, and IPP are not assigned at Chaffey College but would typically be considered successful grades.
Synchronous: An instruction type that requires live, online meeting times.
Title 5: California Education Code
ZTC: Zero Textbook Cost
Success Rate: The percentage of enrollments earning a successful grade.
Retention Rate: The percentage of enrollments earning a retained grade.
Full-Time Equivalent Student (FTES): One (1) FTES is defined as 525 hours of student instruction. FTES does not equate to headcount.
Full-Time Equivalent Faculty (FTEF): One (1) FTEF is defined as a faculty member teaching 15 hours per week per term.
Weekly Student Contact Hours (WSCH): The total number of hours a course is scheduled to meet each week, multiplied by the number of actively enrolled students in that course as of census.
FTES/FTEF Ratio: A measure of scheduling efficiency used to represent the number of FTES that one (1) FTEF generates/supports.
WSCH/FTEF Ratio: A measure of scheduling efficiency used to represent the number of weekly student contact hours (WSCH) that one (1) FTEF generates/supports.
