BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 547 (Block) - Postsecondary Education: Online Courses
Amended: May 1, 2013 Policy Vote: Education 9-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: May 23, 2013 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
SUSPENSE FILE.
Bill Summary: SB 547 requires the academic senates of the
University of California (UC), the California State University
(CSU), and the California Community Colleges (CCC) to jointly
develop and identify online courses available for enrollment by
matriculated students at each of the three segments by fall of
2014, as specified, and requires them to submit a progress
report to the Legislature by January 31, 2014. This bill also
requires that the Board of Governors of the CCC to create a
portal for enrolling in these courses through the California
Virtual Campus (CVC), expands the CVC's purposes, extends the
provisions establishing the CVC until January 1, 2017, and
requires that funding for implementation of these provisions be
provided in the annual Budget Act.
Fiscal Impact:
Development of online courses: Substantial costs to each of
the segments, depending upon the number of courses
developed. The CCC estimates its cost to be $50,000-$100,000
per course (including faculty time); CSU estimates
approximately $150,000 per course, primarily for faculty
time. The UC is likely to have similar per-class development
costs.
CVC expansion and extension: Approximately $1.4 million in
the first year, and $1 million in each subsequent year, to
expand the CVC's purposes and service to students from all
segments. Annual costs of approximately $200,000 to continue
CVC's existing activities by extending the program sunset.
Identify and inform students: Significant costs to each
segment, which could vary widely depending on how
identification and outreach are conducted at each segment.
Academic Senates' reporting: Likely minor costs to the
academic senates to report on first month's progress.
SB 547 (Block)
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Background: Existing law requires the CCC, the UC, and the CSU,
with appropriate consultation with the academic senates of the
respective segments, to jointly develop, maintain, and
disseminate a common core curriculum in general education
courses for the purposes of transfer. Existing law also provides
that any person who has successfully completed the transfer core
curriculum is deemed to have completed all lower division
general education requirements for the UC and the CSU. This
transfer core curriculum is commonly referred to as "IGETC" -
the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum.
(Education Code � 66721)
Existing law establishes the CVC, until January 1, 2014, and
outlines the purposes that it may pursue. Among other
activities, the CVC issues grants and recipients may use the
grants to lead efforts to make online courses available to
students across the state. (EC � 78910.10)
Proposed Law: SB 547 requires the academic senates of the UC,
the CSU, and the CCC to jointly develop and identify online
courses available for enrollment by matriculated students at
each of the three segments by fall of 2014, to develop a process
for determining and identifying students most likely to succeed
in online courses and provide information to them, as specified.
This bill also requires the three academic senates to submit a
progress report to the Legislature by January 31, 2014. This
bill requires the Board of Governors of the CCC to create a
portal for enrolling in these courses through the CVC, expands
the CVC's purposes, and extends the sunset on the CVC until
January 1, 2017. This bill also requires the Legislative
Analyst's Office (LAO) to submit a summary and analysis of the
implementation of the provisions of this chapter to the
appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature, by
October 31, 2015.
Related Legislation: SB 520 (Steinberg) requires the President
of the UC, the Chancellor of the CSU, and the Chancellor of the
CCC, jointly with each of their academic senates, to solicit,
develop, and promote appropriate partnerships between online
course providers and faculty members of the three systems to
develop and deploy high-quality online options for strategically
selected lower division courses and requires that funding for
this purpose be provided in the annual Budget Act. SB 520 is
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scheduled to be heard in this Committee on May 20, 2013.
Staff Comments: This bill presents a multi-faceted approach to
developing and implementing online courses, which involves all
segments and places primary delivery responsibility in the
CCC-administered CVC. Staff notes that this bill's requirements
on the CCC may constitute reimbursable state mandates, depending
on whether a particular requirement is on the Chancellor's
Office or on the community college districts.
This bill requires the academic senates of the UC, the CSU, and
the CCC to jointly develop and identify online courses available
for enrollment by matriculated students at each of the three
segments by fall of 2014. The costs associated with this are
primary faculty time, across disciplines, to identify and
develop courses. The language of this bill is sufficiently
general that the three segments have had to make a number of
assumptions (e.g. about their roles in the process, the number
and types of courses that would be developed, and what would be
entailed in the coordination) to estimate costs, and those
assumptions are different for each segment. Actual costs cannot
be known if it is unclear who will be leading the development
project. Moreover, this bill does not specify a required or
target number of courses; costs would also depend on the number
of courses developed.
This bill requires that the courses created be "deemed to meet
lower division transfer and degree requirements" for each of the
segments. This provision could result in significant
administrative costs for all segments to update enrollment and
transfer processes, as well as related materials.
This bill requires the three academic senates to submit a
progress report to the Legislature by January 31, 2014, which
could likely be completed by this group with minor additional
workload. The academic senates are also responsible for
providing information to the LAO for use in its required report.
This bill further requires the academic senates to develop a
process for determining and identifying students most likely to
succeed in online courses, and informing students of the
technical requirements a student must satisfy to successfully
participate. The costs of this requirement will be determined by
the outreach processes agreed upon by the academic senates, and
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would likely involve providing staff support for the activities
at each campus. The Chancellor's Office estimates that if a .5
PY were needed at each CCC campus (at least during the initial
launch years); the annual cost for 112 campuses would be $5.6
million.
This bill requires that the Board of Governors of the CCC to
create a portal for enrolling in these courses through the CVC,
expands the CVC's purposes, and extends the sunset on the CVC
until January 1, 2017. The CCC has indicated that the cost of
the expansion would $1.4 million in the first year, and $1
million annually for each subsequent year. This bill only
extends the sunset of the CVC to 2017, but it is likely that if
this program is developed there will be cost pressure to
continue it.
The LAO is required to submit to the Legislature, by October 31,
2015, a summary and analysis of the implementation of this bill,
including information on enrollment, retention, and completion
of online courses, disaggregated by ethnicity, age, gender, and
socioeconomic status. Assuming the data is provided by the
academic senates, as required in this bill, the LAO could
complete the report within its existing resources.