Mission Statement

The Business Computer Information Systems Department's mission is to  provide high-quality, clear, career pathways for students interested in our career business programs: business information worker, legal office administration, and health information management. BCIS supports Butte Colleges's mission of preparing students to become productive members of a diverse, sustainable, and global society.

Program Description

For the past number of years, the BCIS Department has worked diligently to combine two of its programs (Office Administration and Computer Applications) into one that was more efficient, current, and recognizable. The result was the Business Information Worker (BIW) program, which was designed based on a California statewide initiative to provide a clear pathway for students seeking marketable skills in the career field of office and administrative support.  Additionally, the CCC's C-ID have held Discipline Input Group (DIG) meetings to discuss the CTE area of Office Technology/ Business Information Worker, which resulted in Model Curriculum, with which the BCIS's BIW closely aligns. The DIG Model Curriculum has been vetted.
The BIW is 30 units and students potentially could complete a Certificate in one semester and a Certificate of Achievement in two semesters. The scheduling of classes followed and supported the clear and guided pathway in the BIW design.

During this redesign of the BIW, our department also reviewed the Legal Office Administration (LOA) program. We redesigned the LOA so that it had the same courses for the Certificate (first semester courses) as were in the BIW Certificate, except for one course required by LOA and not BIW, BCIS 59 Beginning Legal Office Procedures. Additionally, our legal instructor created the course for online modality. The LOA Certificate of Achievement second semester classes also closely aligns with the BIW Certificate of Achievement second semester classes, except for the BCIS 60 Advanced Legal Office Procedures. As with the BIW, we are anticipating completers of both the Certificate and Certificate of Achievement.

Our department also created a new program, Medical Coding Certificate of Achievement.  The Medical Coding Certificate of Achievement is closely aligned with American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) curriculum. While doing so, we were able to add a new discipline to our area, Health Information Management (HIM).  Current medical office classes were modified and the discipline changed to HIM and new courses were created. Additionally, all but two of the courses required for the Certificate have been approved for online modality, HIM 58 Healthcare Law and Ethics. HIM 58 is currently being designed for online modality. BIOL 10 is within different department and discipline area, and it is not currently offered online. The Medical Coding Certificate of Achievement program is designed for students to be able to complete in two semesters. 
While we redesigned the BIW/LOA and created the Medical Coding Certificate of Achievement, we also redesigned the Medical Office Administration (MOA) program. Most of the courses in the Medical Coding Certificate are also included in the MOA, except for HIM 64 Advanced Coding. The MOA is a blend of BIW and the Medical Coding Certificate. This means that the courses for the MOA Certificate will be offered during Fall as they are for the BIW and Medical Coding and the courses for the MOA Certificate of Achievement will be offered during the Spring as they are for BIW and Medical. Coding, allowing students to follow a guided pathway.

To date, we have recruited two new HIM instructors beginning Fall 2020. They are developing online courses.

Accountability for Previously Funded Items

Student Learning/Administrative Unit Outcomes

Our department has been diligently trying to stay up with current and emerging trends in business technologies. We are constantly working with our advisory and our publishers to ensure that we are identifying the most current and accurate SLOs for our student in online technology and business software, etc. We also diligently stay up-to-date by constant research and learning. In such a dynamic, global (business) world, updating these outcomes through our system can be difficult.
We meet with our Fulltime faculty and Associate faculty every institute day to review the prior semester's SLO's per class, and have a robust discussion on ways to teach more effectively. These SLO discussions may be found on the Butte SLO webpage.

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (Instruction Departments)

The BCIS FTES have continued to fall, however the HIM FTES has held steady. This is due in part to the overall decrease in enrollments at Butte College and to the movement to fully online due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

The retention rates of BCIS/HIM are very good as noted below. We do our best to assist students to learn and retain the information in our courses as is evidenced by our high success rates.

Awards did fairly well over the last 5 years, but fell in 2019 due to falling enrollments overall at the school, and due to going online due to the pandemic.

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (All Other Departments)

Strategic Direction

Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Goal Achievement - BCIS does this by:
The success rates of our students are 84% and our retention is at 94%. We work closely with our students to support their learning efforts.
Supporting Student, Faculty, and Staff Success - BCIS does this by:
Our department has worked hard to create a navigable journey for our students. We have redesigned our programs and our course schedules in order to support the new design of the programs. 

Program Review

1) Continue to communicate with departments that require BCIS courses in their disciplines to make sure scheduling works for their student schedules.
We have worked with the Health Occupations department at Butte to integrate our Heath Information Management courses to compliment the Health Occupations needs. We are continuing to review other departments on campus whose students need stronger technology skills to create courses for these departments/students needs. We are currently working with the Business education department to create a new MS Project/Outlook course as part of a new Certificate of Achievement in Project Management. This type of collaboration is hopefully, just the beginning of this collaborative work we would like to do across the campus.
Update the website - this was accomplished. This is consistently updated by our lab tech and we look at it every few weeks to help reach our students.
Use direct emailing with IT to students - this was requested but didn't get completed. We will be doing this with a survey to our students with our Program Review beginning this spring 2021.
Hire HIM fulltime faculty. This has not been completed. Currently we are on a hiring freeze, but it is hoped with we are past the Corona Virus pandemic, the HIM courses will continue to grow and the need for FT faculty will be met. It is clear without fulltime faculty that departments flail and enrollments fall.
Signage on the building and on the street. Some has happened, but the signage on the parking lots is still missing.
Reinstate 12 mo position for admin assistant. Our Administrative Assistant is shared with Business ed and is still on an 11 month assignment.
Faculty should influence purchase of classroom technology - this has begun, but is still a bit disconnected. All the computers are being cycled by IT, but a bit more collaboration with the department is still request, especially for specific items software upgrades. In the past, IT has purchased adobe products, and our dept purchased software and we need clear coordination between these two depts.
 Program review is beginning this Spring 2021.
 
 
 
 

Department Goals

1.Move BCIS Lab Technician funds to District funds.
2. Hire a FT HIM instructor.
3. Provide professional development for faculty.
4. Building enrollments. With the significant decline in enrollments at the college, BCIS/HIM have significantly tighted /lessened their scheduling of courses to meet the need of the lower college enrollments. It is hoped this is temporary due to Covid and FTES will improve in fall 2021. 
 
 

Future Development Strategies

Requested Non-Financial Resources

Current Financial Resources