BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 798
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ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
798 (Bonilla)
As Amended June 2, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+---------------------|
|Higher |12-1 |Medina, Baker, |Harper |
|Education | |Bloom, Chávez, | |
| | |Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, | |
| | |Levine, Linder, Low, | |
| | |Santiago, Weber, | |
| | |Williams | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+---------------------|
|Appropriations |17-0 |Gomez, Bigelow, | |
| | |Bonta, Calderon, | |
| | |Chang, Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Gallagher, | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |Eduardo Garcia, | |
| | |Gordon, Holden, | |
| | |Jones, Quirk, | |
| | |Rendon, Wagner, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
AB 798
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SUMMARY: Establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program
to incentivize increased adoption of open source educational
resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC),
the California State University (CSU), and the University of
California (UC). Specifically, this bill:
1)Establishes the Open Educational Resources (OER) Adoption
Incentive Fund to provide incentives and rewards for campus and
faculty efforts to accelerate use of OER in order to reduce
students' cost and improve access to such materials.
2)Stipulates that moneys in the fund are to support faculty
professional development, OER curation activities, and
technology support for faculty.
3)Stipulates that the acceleration initiative (to use more OER)
shall use, in addition to any other appropriate resources, those
identified, housed, produced, and otherwise found appropriate
pursuant to the California OER Council and the California
Digital Open Sources Library.
4)Authorizes campuses, upon adoption of a local resolution, to
submit the resolution to their respective campus governing board
for an initial grant to establish a strategy, as specified, for
meeting the above goals. The strategy is to include three
campus-determined benchmarks for each of the following three
years.
5)Requires the respective segment offices to review, approve, and
administer the grants.
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6)Stipulates that after receiving the initial grant, the campuses
shall receive bonus grants in each of the following three years
if they meet the corresponding benchmarks for those years. The
maximum amounts of the initial grant and bonus grants are
unspecified.
7)Stipulates that the bonus grants are to be administered locally
by the academic senate in collaboration with the campus
president, provost, or chief academic officer and the campus
student body organization.
8)Requires the Chancellors of the CCC and the CSU and the UC
President to report annually whether the grants are increasing
the rate of adoption of open source educational resources and
decreasing students' textbook costs.
9)Specifies that moneys, or a portion of moneys, appropriated, as
specified, shall not be encumbered unless at least 100% of that
amount encumbered is matched by private funds; that moneys
appropriated, as specified, that are not matched by private
funds shall revert to the Golden State Scholarshare Trust for
purposes of the Governor's Scholarship Programs; and, moneys
appropriated, as specified, shall not require a match by private
funds.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors, and
requests the UC Regents to work with the academic senates to
encourage faculty to give consideration to the least costly
practices in assigning textbooks; to encourage faculty to
disclose to students how new editions of textbooks are different
from previous editions; and, the cost to students for textbooks
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selected, among other things. Current law also urges textbook
publishers to provide information to faculty when they are
considering what textbooks to order, and to post information on
the publishers' Web sites, including "an explanation of how the
newest edition is different from previous editions." Publishers
are also asked to disclose to faculty the length of time they
intend to produce the current edition and provide faculty free
copies of each textbook selected (Education Code (EC) Section
66406).
2)Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act, which, among
other things, requires faculty members and academic departments
at an institution of higher education to consider cost in the
adoption of textbooks; and, requires textbook publishers to
disclose specified information (EC Section 66406.7).
3)Establishes the California Digital Open Source Library as
administered by the CSU, in coordination with the CCC, for the
purpose of housing open source materials while providing an
Internet Web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to
easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for
little or no cost. Specifies that the CSU shall also act in
coordination with the UC in administering the California Digital
Open Source Library (EC 66408).
4)Establishes the California OER Council, composed of faculty
leaders from the three segments of public postsecondary
education (CCC, CSU, and UC), and shall be administered by the
Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of the three
segments of public postsecondary education, or a successor
group. Stipulates that the Council shall be responsible for the
development of a list of 50 strategically selected lower
division courses in the public postsecondary segments for which
high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and
related materials shall be developed or acquired (EC 66409).
5)Requires, by January 1, 2020, publishers of textbooks used at
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the UC, CSU, and the CCC, or private postsecondary educational
institutions, to the extent practicable, to make textbooks
available in whole or in part for sale in an electronic format
and requires the electronic format to contain the same content
as the printed version (EC Section 66410).
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, approximately $4 million in previously appropriated
funds that remain available for implementation of SB 1052
(Steinberg), Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012 and SB 1053
(Steinberg), Chapter 622, Statutes of 2012, would be available for
the purposes of this bill, including the OER Council's
administrative costs.
COMMENTS: Background. According to the College Board, the
average undergraduate student should budget between $1,200 and
$1,300 for textbooks and supplies each year. That figure is as
much as 40% of tuition at a two-year community college and 13% at
a four-year public institution. According to the Student Public
Interest Research Groups (Student PIRGs), February 2015 report,
entitled "Open Textbooks: The Billion-Dollar Solution," since
1978, college textbook costs have increased to 812%, that is to
say, it means that textbook prices have increased at 3.2 times the
rate of inflation. A 2014 Student PIRG study found that 65% of
students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too
expensive, and 94%of those students felt that in so doing, there
grade would suffer in a course. Additionally, almost half of the
students said the cost of textbooks impacted how many course they
were able to take.
What are OER? OER are educational materials such as textbooks,
research articles, videos, assessments, or simulations that are
either licensed under an open copyright license or are in the
public domain. OERs provide no-cost access and no-cost permission
to revise, reuse, remix, or redistribute the materials. According
to a 2012 policy brief by the Center for American Progress and
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EDUCAUSE, digital OERs offer many advantages over traditional
textbooks: they allow students and faculty to access textbooks
and related materials for free online or purchase hardcopies that
are more affordable than traditional textbooks; they enable
faculty to customize learning materials to suit their course
objectives; and, they can provide students with a more flexible
set of tools that can contribute to a richer learning experience.
SB 1052 of 2012, established the California OER Council, to
develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three
segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source
textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to
create and administer a review and approval process for open
source materials, and to establish a competitive
request-for-proposal process in which faculty members, publishers,
and other interested parties would apply for funds to produce 50
high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and
related materials. An appropriation of $5 million was provided
for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds.
California OER Council. The California OER Council reports that
it has thus far selected the 50 courses, identified more than 150
appropriate OERs for said courses, developed a standardized peer
review and approval process, and recruited faculty to conduct the
reviews. As of March 2015, the California OER Council reports
that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER
textbooks.
Analysis Prepared by:
Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916) 319-3960 FN:
0000888
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