BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 1914 (Bonilla) - Public postsecondary education: academic
materials: textbooks: access codes
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|Version: June 22, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill requires the campus academic senates of the
California State University (CSU) and the University of
California (UC) to develop policies regarding instructional
materials to encourage efforts to reduce redundancy in the
delivery of materials, and requires the policies to be provided
to the CSU Board of Trustees and the UC Board of Regents,
respectively.
Fiscal
Impact:
The CSU anticipates costs in the low to mid hundreds of
thousands in the first year to implement this bill. This
AB 1914 (Bonilla) Page 1 of
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includes one-time costs for campus academic senates to develop
required policies. These costs may be absorbable at some
campuses. Annual costs of about $200,000 to compile and
communicate costs of selected course materials to faculty and
to modify course material descriptors differentiating
bookstore suggested, and faculty required materials. (General
Fund)
The UC indicates minor costs to implement this bill.
Background: Existing federal law requires each institution of higher
education that receives federal financial assistance, to the
maximum extent possible, disclose in its website retail price
information of required and recommended instructional materials
for each course, among other things. Federal law also
encourages institutions to provide students with information
regarding programs for renting or purchasing used textbooks;
available guaranteed textbook buy-back programs; available
alternative content delivery programs; and other cost-saving
strategies.
State law establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption
Incentive Program to encourage faculty to accelerate the
adoption of lower cost, high-quality, open educational resources
(OERs) at the California Community Colleges and the CSU. State
law also establishes the California Digital Open Source Library
to house open source materials while providing web-based access
for students, faculty, and staff to use course materials for
little or no cost.
According to the author's office, this bill ensures students are
not paying for unnecessary and underutilized academic materials
during coursework. This bill encourages efforts to reduce
redundancy in the delivery of materials, including access codes.
An access code is a password needed in order to access course
content online. The information a student accesses depends on
the course, but could include things like practice exam
questions, interactive videos, and course assignments. A
student has to purchase the access code that accompanies the
specific textbook, which can range from $50 to $100. According
to the author's office, not only are access codes an additional
cost, but sometimes they are for tasks that could be completed
by platforms already available to both professors and students
AB 1914 (Bonilla) Page 2 of
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on campus.
Proposed Law:
This bill requires the academic senates of campuses of the CSU
and the UC to develop policies regarding instructional materials
to encourage efforts to reduce redundancy in the delivery of
materials, including textbooks and access codes. The campuses
are required to send these policies to the CSU Board of Trustees
and the UC Board of Regents.
The policies must include but are not limited to:
Guidelines prioritizing the use of additional academic
platforms and materials, excluding textbooks, already
available to enrolled students that are determined by
faculty to serve the requirements of a course at no
additional cost students.
A requirement that the cost of academic materials from
the current semester or quarter be provided to faculty
members by the campus bookstore when academic materials are
being chosen for an upcoming academic term, if available.
The establishment of deadlines by the campus for faculty
to notify the campus bookstore of required and recommended
instructional materials so that the bookstore may verify
availability, source, and lower cost options when
practicable, and provide this information to faculty for
consideration when exploring alternatives.
A determination of approved descriptors to post next to
academic materials offered for sale at the campus
bookstore, including a requirement that the bookstore
clearly identify any recommended course materials that are
suggested by the bookstore but not by the faculty member
who assigned the material.
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Related
Legislation: SB 1359 (Block, 2016) requires each campus of the
California Community Colleges and the CSU, and requests each
campus of the UC, to clearly highlight the courses that at least
in part use digital course materials that are free of charge and
have a low-cost option for print version. SB 1359 is pending in
the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Staff
Comments: This bill requires policies to be developed, in
collaboration with students, which have the intended effect of:
encouraging the use of existing platforms to deliver course
materials and mitigating additional, unnecessary charges to
students; increasing awareness of the costs of course materials
that are being assigned by faculty; increasing communication
between faculty and campus bookstores regarding other potential
cost-saving options; and greater transparency to students when
shopping at campus bookstores, to increase awareness of the
materials that are required by faculty versus those that are
optional.
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