Amended in Senate April 1, 2013

Senate Bill No. 520

Introduced by Senator Steinberg

(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Garcia)

February 21, 2013

An act to amend Sections 78910.10 and 78910.30 of begin insert , and to add Section 66409.3 to, end insert the Education Code, relating to student instruction.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SB 520, as amended, Steinberg. begin delete California Virtual Campus: leadership stakeholder meetings: representatives. end delete begin insert Student instruction: California Online Student Access Platform. end insert

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Existing

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(1) The Donahoe Higher Education Act authorizes the activities of the 4 segments of the postsecondary education system in the state. These segments include the 3 public postsecondary segments: the University of California, administered by the Regents of the University of California, the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges. Private and independent postsecondary educational institutions constitute the other segment.

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Provisions of the Donahoe Higher Education Act apply to the University of California only to the extent that the regents act, by resolution, to make them applicable.

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Existing provisions of the Donahoe Higher Education Act establish the 9-member California Open Education Resources Council under the administration of the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of the University of California, the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, or a successor group. Existing law requires the California Open Education Resources Council to develop a list of 50 lower division courses in the public postsecondary segments for which high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials are to be developed or acquired, as specified. Existing law also requires the council to review and approve developed open source materials and to promote strategies for production, access, and use of open source textbooks.

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This bill would establish the California Online Student Access Platform under the administration of the California Open Education Resources Council. The bill would require the platform, among other things, to provide an efficient statewide mechanism for online course providers to offer transferable courses for credit and to create a pool of these online courses. The bill would require the council, among other things, to develop a list of the 50 most impacted lower division courses, as defined, at the University of California, the California State University, and the California Community Colleges that are deemed necessary for program completion or fulfilling transfer requirements, or deemed satisfactory for meeting general education requirements.

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The bill would establish the California Student Access Pool, through which students could access online courses, and would require the online courses approved by the council under the bill to be placed in this pool. The bill would require that students taking online courses available in the pool and achieving a passing score on course examinations be awarded full academic credit for the comparable course at the University of California, the California State University, or the California Community Colleges. Because this provision would require community colleges to award academic credit under these circumstances, it would constitute a state-mandated local program.

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begin insert (2) end insert begin insert   end insert begin insert Existing end insert law, until January 1, 2014, establishes the California Virtual Campus to facilitate ongoing collaboration and joint efforts relating to the use of technology resources and high-speed Internet connectivity to support teaching, learning, workforce development, and research. Existing law, until January 1, 2014, authorizes the California Virtual Campus grant recipient to convene at least 4 leadership stakeholder group meetings annually comprised of representatives from the State Department of Education, the California Technology Assistance Project, and other related programs administered through the department, including adult education, local education agencies, the California Community Colleges, the California State University, the University of California, independent colleges and universities, the California State Library, and representatives from community-based organizations to ensure the efforts affecting segments represented are appropriately meeting the needs of those segments.

This bill would extend the provisions establishing the California Virtual Campus until January 1, 2017. This bill would require the representatives in the stakeholder group meetings from the California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California to include, but not be limited to, faculty members from these institutions. This bill would make additional nonsubstantive changes in these provisions. By requiring faculty members from community college districts to attend these meetings, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

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The

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begin insert (3) end insert begin insert   end insert begin insert The end insert California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: yes.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

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begin insert SECTION 1. end insert   

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The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:

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(a) In recent years, California’s public higher education
institutions have faced skyrocketing demand for enrollment at a
time when they lack capacity to provide students with access to
courses necessary for program completion and success.

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(b) In the 2012-13 academic year, 85 percent of California
Community Colleges (CCC) reported having waiting lists for their
fall 2012 course sections, with a statewide average of more than
7,000 students on waiting lists per college.

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(c) Similarly, impacted courses have contributed significantly
to difficulties within the University of California (UC) and
California State University (CSU) systems, with figures indicating
that only 60 percent and 16 percent of students, respectively, are
able to earn a degree within four years, with lack of access to key
courses a factor in increased time-to-degree.

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(d) With rapidly developing innovation in online course delivery
models, California’s public institutions of higher education have
a unique opportunity to meet critical demands for enrollment and
reduce time-to-degree by providing students with access to
high-quality, alternative, online pathways to successfully complete
and obtain credit for the most impacted lower division courses.

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(e) California could significantly benefit from a statutorily
enacted, quality-first, faculty-led framework allowing students in
online courses in strategically selected lower division majors and
general education fields to be awarded credit at the UC, CSU, and
CCC systems. While providing easy access to these courses, these
systems could also continually assess the value of the courses and
the rates of student success in utilizing these alternative online
pathways.

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begin insert SEC. 2. end insert   

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begin insert Section 66409.3 is added to the end insert begin insert Education Code end insert begin insert , to
read: end insert

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begin insert 66409.3. end insert   

(a) The California Online Student Access Platform
is hereby established. The platform shall be administered by the
California Open Education Resources Council established pursuant
to Section 66409. As used in this section, “platform” means the
California Online Student Access Platform established by this
section.

(b) The platform shall accomplish all of the following objectives:

(1) Provide an efficient statewide mechanism for online course
providers to offer transferable courses for credit.

(2) Create a pool of approved and transferable online courses
for credit through which students seeking to enroll may easily
access those courses and related content.

(3) Provide a faculty-led process that places the highest priority
on educational quality through which online courses can be
subjected to high-quality standards and review.

(4) Allow the state, the public, students, faculty, and other
stakeholders to examine student success rates within the platform.

(c) For purposes of accomplishing all of the objectives of the
platform as specified in subdivision (b), the California Open
Education Resources Council shall do all of the following:

(1) (A) Develop a list of the 50 most impacted lower division
courses at the University of California, the California State
University, and the California Community Colleges that are
deemed necessary for program completion or fulfilling transfer
requirements, or deemed satisfactory for meeting general education
requirements.

(B) For purposes of this paragraph, “impacted lower division
course” means a course in which, during most academic terms,
the number of students seeking to enroll in the course exceeds the
number spaces available in the course.

(2) Create and administer a standardized review and approval
process for online courses in which most or all course instruction
is delivered online and is open to any interested person. When
reviewing online courses for purposes of this section, the council
shall, at minimum, consider the extent to which each course does
any of the following:

(A) Provides students with instructional support and related
services to promote retention and success.

(B) Provides students with interaction with instructors and other
students.

(C) Contains a proctored student assessment and examination
process that ensures academic integrity and satisfactorily measures
student learning.

(D) Provides a student with an opportunity to assess the extent
to which he or she is suited for online learning prior to enrolling.

(E) Utilizes, as the primary course text or as a wholly acceptable
alternative, content, where it exists, from the California Digital
Open Source Library established pursuant to Section 66408.

(F) Includes adaptive learning technology systems or
comparable technologies that can provide significant improvement
in the learning of students.

(G) Includes content that has been reviewed and recommended
by the American Council on Education.

(3) Regularly solicit and consider from each of the respective
statewide student associations of the University of California, the
California State University, and the California Community
Colleges, advice and guidance on implementation of the platform.

(4) Collect, review, and make public data and other information
related to student success within the platform by gathering and
reporting data on accepted student success metrics, including, but
not necessarily limited to, student enrollment in approved online
courses through the platform, and student retention and completion
rates.

(5) Utilize the state’s current common course numbering system
for approved courses so as to simplify the identification and
articulation of comparable courses.

(d) Online courses approved by the California Open Education
Resources Council pursuant to this section shall be placed in the
California Student Access Course Pool, which is hereby created,
through which students may access the courses. Students taking
an online course available in the California Student Access Course
Pool and achieving a passing score on the course examination
shall be awarded full academic credit for the comparable course
at the University of California, the California State University, or
the California Community Colleges.

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begin delete SECTION 1. end delete
begin insert SEC. 3. end insert   

Section 78910.10 of the Education Code is amended
to read:

78910.10.  

(a) (1) The California Virtual Campus, pursuant
to funding provided to the Board of Governors of the California
Community Colleges for this purpose in the annual Budget Act,
may pursue all of the following purposes, to the extent funding is
available:

(A) To enrich formal and informal educational experiences and
improve students’ academic performance by supporting the
development of highly engaging, research-based innovations in
teaching and learning in K-12 public schools and the California
Community Colleges, the California State University, and the
University of California.

(B) To enhance the awareness of, and access to, highly engaging
online courses of study, emphasizing courses of study that support
a diverse and highly skilled science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics workforce.

(C) To support education research, the implementation of
research-based practices, and promote economic development
through the use of next generation advanced network infrastructure,
services, and network technologies that enable collaboration and
resource sharing between formal and informal educators in K-12
public schools, the California Community Colleges, the California
State University, the University of California, independent colleges
and universities, public libraries, and community-based
organizations at locations across the state.

(D) To increase access to next generation Internet services, 21st
century workforce development programs, and e-government
services for students and staff served or employed by education
entities and students served primarily online through partnerships
with public libraries and community-based organizations.

(E) To enhance access to health care education and training
programs to current or future health care workers.

(F) To manage digital assets and develop contracts for services
necessary to provide the technical and management support needed
to maximize the benefits of the high-speed, high-bandwidth
network infrastructure available to public higher education entities
in California.

(G) Through the aggregation of demand for network enabled
technologies and related services from public education entities,
and through partnerships with the private sector, to provide
education entities with access to technical support and staff who
can facilitate statewide efforts that support innovations in teaching
and learning that are necessary to provide for a well-educated
citizenry, and economic and 21st century workforce development.

(2) To accomplish the purposes of paragraph (1), the California
Virtual Campus may partner with local educational agencies, the
State Department of Education, the 11 regional California
Technology Assistance Projects, the California Community
Colleges, the California State University, the University of
California, independent colleges and universities, public libraries,
and community-based organizations to facilitate ongoing
collaboration and joint efforts relating to the use of technology
resources and high-speed Internet connectivity to support teaching,
learning, workforce development, and research.

(3) Efforts conducted as a result of this chapter shall not prohibit
or otherwise exclude the ability of existing or new educational
technology programs from being developed, expanded, or
enhanced.

(b) For purposes of this article, the following terms have the
following meanings:

(1) “Online courses of study” means any of the following:

(A) Online teaching, learning, and research resources, including,
but not necessarily limited to, books, course materials, video
materials, interactive lessons, tests, or software, the copyrights of
which have expired, or have been released with an intellectual
property license that permits their free use or repurposing by others
without the permission of the original authors or creators of the
learning materials or resources.

(B) Professional development opportunities for formal and
informal educators who desire to use the resources in subparagraph
(A).

(C) Online instruction.

(2) “Online instruction” means technology enabled online real
time (synchronous) interaction between the instructor and the
student, near time (asynchronous) interaction between the instructor
and the student, or any combination thereof.

(c) The California Virtual Campus grant recipient may
accomplish all of the following:

(1) Convene at least four leadership stakeholder group meetings
annually composed of representatives from the State Department
of Education, the California Technology Assistance Project, and
other related programs administered through the department,
including adult education, local education agencies, the California
Community Colleges, the California State University, the
University of California, independent colleges and universities,
the California State Library, and representatives from
community-based organizations to ensure the efforts affecting
segments represented are appropriately meeting the needs of those
segments. The leadership stakeholder group shall also coordinate
and obtain assistance with the implementation of efforts delineated
in this article, to identify and maintain an up-to-date list of the
technology resources and tools that are necessary to support
innovation in teaching and learning, and to identify opportunities
for leveraging resources and expertise for meeting those needs in
an efficient and cost-effective manner. For purposes of this
paragraph, the representatives from the California Community
Colleges, the California State University, and the University of
California shall include, but not be limited to, faculty members
from these institutions.

(2) Lead efforts to make online courses of study available across
the state that include, but are not limited to, the following:

(A) Developing online courses of study that are pedagogically
sound and fully accessible, in compliance with the federal
Americans with Disabilities Act (Public Law 101-336), by students
with varying learning styles and disabilities.

(i) The development of K-12 online courses pursuant to this
subparagraph shall be achieved in partnership with local education
agencies and the California Technology Assistance Project.

(ii) Online courses developed for grades K-12 pursuant to this
subparagraph shall be aligned to the California academic content
standards and guidelines for online courses.

(B) Overseeing the development of at least 12 model online
courses of study that, collectively, would allow students to meet
the requirements of the Intersegmental General Education Transfer
Curriculum (IGETC) and at least two courses that support basic
skills education courses in English, English as a second language,
or mathematics.

(C) Encouraging the entities listed in paragraph (1) to do both
of the following:

(i) Make accessible to each other their courses of study that are
funded by the state.

(ii) Allow their courses of study to be accessible to the general
public if they determine access would not inhibit their ability to
provide appropriate protection of the state’s intellectual property
rights.

(3) Ensure that the learning objects created as part of the
California Virtual Campus online courses of study with state
General Fund revenues are linked to digital content libraries that
include information about course content freely available to
California educators and students.

(4) Develop formal partnership agreements between the entities
listed in paragraph (1) and the California Virtual Campus, including
course articulation agreements that allow qualified high school
students to accelerate the completion of requirements for a high
school diploma and a two-year or four-year degree and agreements
that provide opportunities for part-time faculty teaching online to
obtain full-time employment teaching online.

(5) Develop formal partnership agreements with the entities
listed in paragraph (1) and others to enhance access to professional
development courses that introduce faculty, teachers, staff, and
college course developers to the conceptual development, creation,
and production methodologies that underlie the development of
online courses of study and support students’ successful completion
of those courses. The professional development opportunities may
include, but not necessarily be limited to, all of the following:

(A) Addressing issues relating to copyright, permission for the
use or reuse of material, use of resources in the public domain,
and other intellectual property concepts.

(B) Accessibility for students with disabilities.

(C) Factors to ensure that content is culturally relevant to a
diverse student body.

(D) Delivery options that incorporate multiple learning styles
and strategies.

(6) Develop formal partnership agreements with entities,
including, but not limited to, those listed in paragraph (1), to ensure
access to online professional learning communities that incorporate
the use of Internet-based collaboration tools and to support joint
discussions between K-12 educators, higher education faculty and
staff, and others to examine student performance data, student
learning objectives, curriculum, and other issues that relate to
students’ academic success and preparation for the workforce.

(7) In partnership with entities, including those listed in
paragraph (1), develop an e-portfolio system that allows
participating students to demonstrate their attainment of academic
learning objectives, skills and knowledge that relate to their career
interests, and completion of prerequisites for participation in
courses or training programs. The e-portfolio system may do all
of the following:

(A) Ensure that student privacy is protected in accordance with
existing law.

(B) Comply with accessibility laws for students with disabilities.

(C) Be designed in a manner that supports the use of e-portfolio
content in the accreditation requirements of schools, colleges, and
universities.

(8) In partnership with entities, including those listed in
paragraph (1), identify opportunities to enhance students’ access
to medical education and medical services through the use of
high-speed Internet connections to the campuses, and opportunities
for education programs and services to support the telehealth efforts
taking place within the state.

(d) The lead agency for the California Virtual Campus, in
consultation with the leadership stakeholder group described in
paragraph (1) of subdivision (c) if that group is convened by the
California Virtual Campus grant recipient, shall contract with an
independent third party with expertise in online teaching, learning,
and the development of online courses of study, as approved by
the board, to evaluate the California Virtual Campus. The
evaluation shall include, but not be limited to, an assessment of
the number of faculty, teachers, consortia, informal educators, and
students that use the online courses of study, the quality of students’
experiences, student grades earned, and the cost of the online
course content, comparing the online course content with traditional
textbooks. The board may require additional information that it
determines to be necessary to evaluate the effectiveness and
viability of the California Virtual Campus. This evaluation shall
be submitted to the Legislature no later than three years after the
enactment of this act.

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begin insert SEC. 4. end insert   

Section 78910.30 of the Education Code is amended
to read:

78910.30.  

This article shall remain in effect until January 1,
2017, and as of that date is repealed, unless a later enacted statute,
that is enacted before January 1, 2017, deletes or extends that date.

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begin insert SEC. 5. end insert   

If the Commission on State Mandates determines that
this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to
local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made
pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division
4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.