BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1053|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 1053
Author: Steinberg (D), et al.
Amended: 5/25/12
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE : 7-0, 4/11/12
AYES: Lowenthal, Alquist, Hancock, Liu, Price, Simitian,
Vargas
NO VOTE RECORDED: Runner, Blakeslee, Huff, Vacancy
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 5-2, 5/24/12
AYES: Kehoe, Alquist, Lieu, Price, Steinberg
NOES: Walters, Dutton
SUBJECT : California Open Source Digital Library
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill establishes the California Open Source
Digital Library (COSDL) for the purpose of housing open
source materials.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
1. Requires, beginning January 1, 2020, any person, firm or
corporation that publishes textbooks offered for sale at
the University of California (UC), California State
University (CSU), California Community Colleges (CCC) or
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a private college or university to make the textbooks
available for sale in an electronic format.
2. Requires the CSU and CCC, and encourages the UC, to work
with the academic senates of each segment to encourage
faculty to give consideration to the least costly
practices in assigning textbooks and to work with
publishers and college bookstores.
3. Requires college bookstores to work with the academic
senates of each campus to review the process and
timelines involved in ordering and stocking textbooks
and to create bundles and packages of instructional
materials that are economically sound.
4. Urges textbook publishers to provide specific
information to faculty and post that information on the
company's Web site, give preference to supplements
rather than producing a new edition and disclose the
length of time the current edition is intended to be in
production.
5. Requires the CSU, and requests the UC, to review and
revise student transfer policies to ensure that faculty
may choose a textbook selected for a transfer or general
education course, regardless of publication date, for as
long as the textbook is available, current and reflects
contemporary thinking.
This bill specifies that the COSDL shall be administered by
the CSU, in coordination with the CCC and the UC (if the UC
Regents take action to approve the activity). This bill is
operative only if funds are appropriated in the Budget Act,
or if federal or private funds are made available, or any
combination thereof.
This bill requires that the materials in the library bear a
creative commons attribution license that allows others to
use, distribute, and create derivative works based upon the
digital material while still allowing the authors or
creators of the material to receive credit for their
efforts.
This bill becomes operative only if SB 1052 (Steinberg)
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becomes operative on or before January 1, 2013, and
establishes the California Open Education Resources
Council.
Background
Open education resources (OER) are either licensed under an
open copyright license or are in the public domain. OER
includes full courses, course textbooks and materials,
modules, videos, simulations, and tests. Open source gives
free access to the material as well as permission to
revise, reuse, remix and redistribute the materials at no
cost.
Existing digital libraries . The UC administers the
California Digital Library which provides access to a
digitized worldwide collection of research, books,
journals, government publications and maps, allows faculty
to publish articles and communicate with other scholars,
but does not include textbooks and materials that are
placed by faculty on reserve at the campus bookstore.
Faculty may have students use material from the digital
library but those materials are not necessarily the
textbook of record.
The CSU administers the Affordable Learning Solutions,
which is a web-based system that houses Multimedia
Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
(MERLOT), the Digital Marketplace and other tools that
enable faculty and students to search for free or low-cost
materials, faculty to be recognized for work as well as
communicate with other scholars. Textbooks and materials
that are placed by faculty on reserve at the campus
bookstore are not included in MERLOT. Faculty may have
students use material from the digital library but those
materials are not necessarily the textbook of record.
In 2003, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District
received a one-time grant from the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation for Sharing of Free Intellectual Assets
project, which created freely available course materials
for eight college courses using a mixture of open education
resource and conventional commercial learning materials.
Existing law authorized the CCC to establish a pilot
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program to provide to faculty with the information, methods
and instructional materials to establish open education
resources centers. It appears that both projects were
halted due to budgetary constraints.
The College Textbook Transparency Act requires, beginning
January 1, 2010:
1. Textbook publishers to print on the cover or within each
textbook a summary of the substantive content
differences between the new and prior editions, and the
copyright date of the previous edition.
2. Each campus bookstore at any public college or
university to post in its store or on its Web site a
disclosure of its retail pricing policy on new and used
textbooks.
3. Each public college or university to encourage personnel
responsible for selecting course materials (typically
faculty) to place their orders with sufficient lead time
to enable the bookstore to confirm the availability of
the requested materials. (Education Code § 66406.7)
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
Start-up costs likely in the low millions of dollars;
ongoing costs of $400,000 to CSU. Exact costs will be
determined by the choices made by the California Open
Education Resources Council, which is given the authority
to oversee the COSDL.
Potentially substantial (ongoing) reimbursable mandate on
the CCCs; the system's participation is required, and
CCCs are eligible to seek reimbursement for
state-mandated activities.
SUPPORT : (Verified 5/25/12)
AFSCME
California Community Colleges Board of Governors
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California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
California State University Academic Senate
Campaign for College Opportunity
Coast Colleges Community College District
Community College League of California
Student Senate for California Community Colleges
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author, "The cost
of attending California's public colleges and universities
has skyrocketed in recent years. While fees often tend to
be the most visible cost, other non-tuition related costs,
like the cost of textbooks, significantly burden students
and families as well. Recent studies show that due to the
cost of textbooks, many students forego purchasing them
altogether. Through Open Education Resources (OER),
California can offer students in the 50 most widely taken
lower-division courses, the highest quality textbooks and
related materials for free online or for about $20
hardcopy. It also allows faculty to customize
learning materials in a manner that best suit their
classroom learning objectives."
PQ:mw 5/25/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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