Pipeline, online registration, and the campus ID card are all new technological advances City College is making to accommodate students.

Recently, the assessment center has researched another advancement in technology: the possibility of online assessment for out-of-state and out-of-country students.

While the cost of City College makes education affordable, some say it’s nearly impossible for the students who come from out of town, out of state, and out of country to enroll due to assessment testing being less accessible.

The City College assessment center has taken this fact into consideration and initiated a program that will allow non-local students to assess at their local college campus.

This program is called “Remote Testing.” Sheri Calderon, Assessment Coordinator, described the program as “a proctored exam somewhere on another campus.” While the test itself will remain the same, it will become available in an online format.

“A pilot program has been started to see which institutions would be willing to partner with us as online proctors,” said Dr. Alice Scharper, Dean of Educational Programs at City College. “I think it’s pretty important for students to assess online if they can’t come on campus.”

At this time, math assessment tests have been implemented, and the Assessment Office is coming up with a written portion for the English assessment as well.

Out of state students seem to like the idea.

“I would have liked that a lot, since I’m not from here, it would have made it a lot easier for me to have assessed in my home town,” said Ronnie Henderson, a business major.

“It seems beneficial for everyone because it increases equality of opportunity,” said Kevin Knight, a political science major.

“It’s more convenient for students,” said Calderon. “We’re always looking for better, easier ways to do things.”

Calderon also said the assessment staff has already looked to other colleges to survey how they test their students.

The downfall with the new program would be the difficulty of implementing it, because other schools will have to make time to test City College’s “future students” in addition to their own, Calderon said.

“We’re trying to find a partner [school] without burdening them for remote testing,” Calderon said. Testing is happening on a daily basis, we’re always busy.”

“Can we accommodate them without disturbing other students? We wouldn’t want to have to make our students wait,” said Jack Friedlander, executive vice president of Educational Programs at City College.

Assessment technology has been worked out and City College’s tests have been computerized. One of the final stages of implementing this process is a matter of finding a partner school to test the program out with.