Bellevue College has released the statistics regarding the reception of ctcLink, the new all-encompassing system for online management of classes, courses, credits, registration, and more at Washington’s community and technical colleges. Overall, while the launch itself has gone smoothly, the results clearly show there is much to be desired from the students.
The main issue of contention was the student’s ability to have “comfort and ability in using ctcLink,” with the overwhelming majority of survey participants noting that they were still developing users and needed more experience. However, this is to be expected. CtcLink has only just rolled out for Bellevue College, so it is natural that users are still learning and need help occasionally.
Generally, most participants thought that management did a good enough job on the ctcLink rollout, but do not want another major college-wide change until they can get used to it. This is also an expected result. There was a significant amount of adequate communication from BC surrounding ctcLink, to the point where even the majority of survey participants thought it was verging on too much.
As put in the “Challenges” section of the released document, “The main challenges were frustrations with the system itself, access and permissions issues, conflicting and inaccurate information and video resources, a decrease in available training (or access to training) when it was still needed, and not having time to get a comfortable system because so much time is spent dealing with emergent issues.”
This presents the issue excellently. Mistakes in such a massive overhaul are inevitable. So it is fair to say that it is good that BC management is collecting information on what went wrong and what went right for the next time we must make a significant change across the whole BC community.
If you want to participate in the next ctcLink survey, pay attention to your Bellevue College email! There will be another survey in May. If you need support or any assistance with ctcLink, be sure to submit a ticket or join live walk-in zoom support on Monday and Wednesday from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M.
