BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 798
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|Author: |Bonilla |
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|Version: |July 1, 2015 |
| |Hearing Date: July 8, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant: |Lenin Del Castillo |
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Subject: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015
SUMMARY
This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program
to incentivize increased adoption of open educational resources
at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC) and the
California State University (CSU).
BACKGROUND
Existing law:
1)Requires the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors, and
requests the Regents of the University of California (UC) to
work with the academic senates to encourage faculty to give
consideration to the least costly practices in assigning
textbooks and to encourage faculty to disclose to students how
new editions of textbooks are different from previous
editions. Existing 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." In addition, publishers
are 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 § 66406)
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2)Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act which requires
faculty members and academic departments at an institution of
higher education to consider cost in the adoption of textbooks
and also requires textbook publishers to disclose specified
information. (EC § 66406.7)
3)Establishes the California Digital Open Source Library
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 Open Educational Resources Council,
composed of faculty leaders from the CCC, CSU, and UC, and
administered by the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic
Senates of these segments of public postsecondary education,
or a successor group. Provides 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
the University of California (UC), California State University
(CSU), and the California Community College (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 § 66410)
ANALYSIS
This bill:
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1)Establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to
reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to
accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality, open
educational resources (OERs). Provides that faculty
development shall be a key component of this initiative, and
requires the initiative to utilize the resources identified,
houses, produced, and otherwise found appropriate to the
California Open Education Resources Council and the California
Digital Open Source Library.
2)Establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive
Fund to provide incentives and rewards for campus and faculty
efforts to accelerate the adoption of OERs for the purpose of
reducing students' cost and improving access to quality
materials.
3)Provides that moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the
Legislature, are to create and support faculty professional
development, professional development for staff, OER curation
activities, curriculum modification, and technology support
for faculty, students, and staff.
4)Prohibits moneys in the fund from being used for direct
compensation for faculty who adopt OERs or for purchasing new
equipment.
5)Defines OERs as high-quality teaching, learning, and research
resources that reside in the public domain or have been
released under an intellectual property license that permits
their free use and repurposing by others, and may include
other resources that are legally available and free of cost to
students.
6)Authorizes campuses, upon adoption of a local resolution
stating its intent to increase student access to high-quality
OERs and in collaboration with students and the
administration, to develop a plan that describes evidence of
the campus' commitment and readiness to effectively spend
grant money to support faculty adoption of OERs, as specified.
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The plan shall include three benchmarks focusing on reducing
costs for students and increasing the adoption of high-quality
OERs consisting of annual goals for three years.
7)Provides that a plan that demonstrates readiness requirements
shall be given priority for approval, as specified, including
concrete benchmarks that demonstrate quantifiable outcomes to
be achieved from its implementation, the utilization of
available open educational resources (OERs), and an estimate
of the amount of money to be saved per student.
8)Provides that each local campus may submit the resolution and
plan to the California Open Education Resources Council for an
initial grant.
9)Requires the California Open Education Resources Council to
review the plan, and approve it if it meets the requirements,
as specified. Provides that the plans shall be submitted and
approved in one of two rounds, as specified, with up to 100
plans approved per year. Allows administrative support to be
provided by COOL4Ed to the California Open Education Resources
Council.
10)Limits an initial grant at $10,000 and provides that each
campus shall receive an annual bonus grant of up to $10,000
for up to three years for meeting established performance
benchmarks for accelerating usage of OERs in courses, as
specified. Allows additional bonus grants if sufficient funds
remain available in the Open Educational Adoption Incentive
Fund after the first bonus grants for reaching the third
benchmark are awarded.
11)Requires the bonus grants to be used for any, or some
combination, of faculty professional development, professional
development of staff, OER curation activities, curriculum
modification, and technological support for faculty, students,
and staff.
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12)Requires a grant recipient to report to the California Open
Education Resources Council as to whether its benchmarks have
been reached to determine whether it is eligible for bonus
grants, as specified.
13)Requires the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates to
report to the Legislature before July of each year, commencing
in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of
adoption of OERs and decreasing textbook costs for college
students.
14)Provides that the bill's provisions shall become inoperative
on July 1, 2020.
15)Authorizes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to
be funded from the existing appropriation for the California
Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital
Open Source Library, as specified.
16)Specifies that moneys appropriated for purposes of the
College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 shall not be
required to be matched by private funds.
17)Requires 25 percent of each grant awarded to a campus for
purposes of this bill shall be matched by the campus and used
by the campus to ensure administrative and faculty support of
the campus' plan.
18)Specifies that money provided to a member of the California
Open Education Resources Council for purposes of the council
carrying out its duties shall not exceed $3,000 total and
shall be provided as a stipend. Provides that no additional
money shall be provided for travel purposes.
STAFF COMMENTS
1)Need for the bill. According to the author's office, "many
students and families are struggling to pay for a college
education. One part of this problem is the rising cost of
textbooks. Every year, students pay around $1,300 for
textbooks as prices have increased at over three times the
rate of inflation. The cost of textbooks comprises 40 percent
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of tuition at a two-year community college and 13 percent at a
four-year public school. To afford these costs, students take
on more debt, work more hours, or make choices that hinder
their academic success." This bill is intended to save
college students money by providing incentives for local
campuses to adopt open educational resources (OERs) and reduce
the cost of textbooks.
2)Open educational resources. OERs are educational materials that
include 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 EDUCAUSE, digital OERs
offer many advantages over traditional textbooks, such as
allowing students and faculty to access textbooks and related
materials for free online or the purchase of hardcopies that
are more affordable than traditional textbooks. They also
enable faculty to customize learning materials to suit their
course objectives and can provide students with a more
flexible set of tools that can contribute to a richer learning
experience.
The California Open Education Resources 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 Open Education Resources Council reports that
reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER
textbooks.
3)Cost of textbooks. 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 percent of tuition at a two-year community college and
13 percent at a four-year public institution. A 2014 Student
Public Interest Research Group study found that 65 percent of
students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was
too expensive, and 94 percent of those students felt that in
doing so, that would hurt their grade in a course.
Additionally, almost half of the students reported that the
cost of textbooks impacted how many courses they were able to
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take at a time.
4)Incentives for faculty. One could argue the bill is unnecessary
since faculty already have the ability to adopt OERs. The
author's office indicates that the main hurdles preventing the
adoption of OERs include lack of time for faculty to develop
them or to adapt their classes, lack of information on
currently available OERs, and lack of technological support
for faculty. According to a presentation by faculty and
administrators working on the development and implementation
of Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online
Teaching, professors are not adopting OERs quickly because
they do not know what is available or believe it will be
difficult to do. The bill seeks to address these hurdles by
leveraging existing funds to provide the time and support for
faculty to adopt open educational resources (OERs).
Specifically, the bill would provide yearly benchmark
incentives to accelerate the rate of adoption at local
campuses.
5)Source of funding. SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes 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. This bill proposes to utilize unspent funds
from this appropriation for its purposes.
6)Fiscal impact. According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, this bill would utilize approximately $4 million in
previously appropriated funds that remain available for
implementation of SB 1052 and SB 1053 (Steinberg, Chapter 622,
Statutes of 2012) for the purposes of this bill, including the
California Open Education Resource Council's administrative
costs.
7)Related and prior legislation.
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SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) created the
California Open Educational Resources Council to identify 50
courses where OERs could be created or identified in order to
reduce costs for students.
SB 1053 (Steinberg, Chapter 622, Statutes of 2012) created the
California Digital Open Source Library to provide OERs in one
central location.
SUPPORT
Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
California State Student Association (sponsor)
California State University
Cerritos Community College District
Community College League of California
OpenStax
TechNet
OPPOSITION
None received.
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