BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 798|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 798
Author: Bonilla (D)
Amended: 8/31/15 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 7-0, 7/8/15
AYES: Liu, Runner, Hancock, Leyva, Monning, Pan, Vidak
NO VOTE RECORDED: Block, Mendoza
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 8/27/15
AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, Leyva, Mendoza, Nielsen
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015
SOURCE: California State Student Association
DIGEST: 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).
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Requires the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors, and
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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)
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
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acquired. (EC § 66409)
5)Requires, by January 1, 2020, publishers of textbooks used at
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 § 66410)
ANALYSIS
This bill:
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.
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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
demonstrating its commitment 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.
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, and the utilization of
available OERs.
8)Provides that each local campus may submit the resolution and
plan to the California Open Education Resources Council for an
initial grant, and one additional plan for every additional
10,000 students. A local campus that is receiving a grant or
bonus grant may submit no more than the maximum number of
plans for an initial grant minus the number of the campus'
plans that are currently receiving a grant or bonus 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. For a plan that is not approved, the
council shall recommend modifications to increase the
likelihood of the plan's success. Allows administrative
support to be provided by COOL4Ed to the California Open
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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. Provides that a plan that has not met a benchmark
shall not be awarded any bonus grant and shall be deemed
terminated. 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.
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
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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 $8,000 total and
shall be provided as a stipend. Provides that no additional
money shall be provided for travel purposes.
Comments
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 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 OERs and reduce the cost of textbooks.
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.
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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.
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 take at a time.
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 OERs.
Specifically, the bill provides yearly benchmark incentives to
accelerate the rate of adoption at local campuses.
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
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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.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the expansion
of the use of previously appropriated funds will allow
expenditure of approximately $4 million in unspent funds from
the initial appropriation.
SUPPORT: (Verified8/27/15)
California State Student Association (source)
Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
California State University
Cerritos Community College District
Community College League of California
OpenStax
TechNet
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/27/15)
None received
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang,
Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd,
Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia,
Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray,
Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Irwin, Jones,
Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low,
Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin,
Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Perea,
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Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago,
Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber,
Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins
NO VOTE RECORDED: Dahle, Holden
Prepared by:Lenin Del Castillo / ED. / (916) 651-4105
8/30/15 19:11:05
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