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When Colorado adopted its Colorado Community College System (CCCS), it was only the third state in the nation to implement a common course numbering system designed to allow students seamless transfer from one Colorado community college to another with no loss of credit, time or money.

The process of implementing the system has taken about three years, said Linda Forkner, director of curriculum for CCCS.

The first step was to assemble faculty in discipline teams where they would review curriculum in their disciplines and make changes. The changes were then submitted to the Office of Curriculum and Transfer.

Finally, it was submitted to a committee comprised of vice presidents from the community colleges and reviewed for cross-discipline duplication. When these duplications were eliminated, the courses were entered into an online database.

"In four to six weeks, the database will have a feature where each course will indicate where it is taught," Forkner said.

The idea for consolidating curriculum came from Florida, Forkner said. Florida was the leader in the area of common course numbering and included the four-year institutions in its process.

"It was tremendous in the fact that it brought a real consistency," Forkner said. "It improves the transferability from one community college to another."

The process took the number of courses given at community colleges that belonged to CCCS from 12,000 courses and 400 prefixes to fewer than 4,000 courses and 184 prefixes.

Called the Colorado Common Course Numbering System Project (CCCNS), the program ensures that students who transfer from one public community college to another can successfully complete their degree or program without duplicating course work, thereby avoiding extended time commitments and increased expense.

"It has been a pretty arduous process," said Gene Bilodeau, Craig Campus dean registrar.

There were so many different courses to whittle down to the 4,000 courses that the campus is currently offering.

Bilodeau said there was much discussion between faculty at campuses and between different community colleges.

"There was fair representation," Bilodeau said, "CNCC was definitely represented," at the state level in the discussion of how to whittle courses down.

"There was a lot of emailing that went on," Bilodeau said.

To provide for individualization, up to 20 percent of any course is allowed to vary from the common competencies and outlines.

"There are going to be some bugs," Bilodeau said. "We are going to be changing a lot of data in the computer system."

Bilodeau said the new system would be a big benefit especially for students who are transferring from a community college to a four-year institution. With the system, four-year institutions will be able to evaluate courses much easier and faster.

"What I accept, everyone in the system will also accept," Bilodeau said evaluating transfer credits.

The Colorado Community College System comprises the state's largest system of higher education serving nearly 110,000 students annually.

The process and achieving CCCNS within the past year, Bilodeau said "was a long year, I can tell you."

But the process should prove useful for students as well as staff at the community colleges.

"Now it is foreseeable that a student could do each semester at a different school if their lifestyle demanded it," Forkner said.

Liz King is an intern with the Craig Daily Press. She can be reached at 824-7031 or eking@craigdailypress.com.