BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1359|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 1359
Author: Block (D)
Amended: 5/31/16
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 9-0, 4/6/16
AYES: Liu, Block, Hancock, Huff, Leyva, Mendoza, Monning, Pan,
Vidak
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 5/27/16
AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, McGuire, Mendoza, Nielsen
SUBJECT: Public postsecondary education: education
materials: textbooks
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill requires each campus of the California
Community Colleges and the California State University, and
requests each campus of the University of California, 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.
ANALYSIS:
Existing federal law, the Higher Education Opportunity Act:
1) Requires each institution of higher education (IHE) that
receives federal financial assistance, to the maximum extent
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possible, to:
a) Disclose, on the IHE's online course schedule, the
International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and retail price
information of required and recommended textbooks and
supplemental materials for each course listed in the
course schedule.
b) Include on the IHE's written course schedule a notice
that textbook information is available on the IHE's online
course schedule, and the web link to that schedule.
1) Provides exceptions to the disclosure requirement as
follows:
a) If the ISBN is not available, the IHE is required to
include the author, title, publisher, and copyright date.
b) If the IHE determines that the disclosure of the price
is not practicable for a textbook or supplemental
material, the IHE is required to so indicate by placing
the designation "To Be Determined" in lieu of the price.
1) Encourages IHEs to also provide to students information
regarding:
a) Available institutional programs for renting textbooks
or for purchasing used textbooks.
b) Available institutional guaranteed textbook buy-back
programs.
c) Available institutional alternative content delivery
programs.
d) Other available institutional cost-saving strategies.
1) Requires each IHE that receives federal financial assistance
to make available to college bookstores that are operated or
affiliated with the institution the most accurate information
available regarding the IHE's course schedule for the
subsequent academic period and the information described in
1) and 2) above for each course or class offered for the
subsequent academic period.
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2) Provides that the information is to be provided to the
college bookstore as soon as is practicable upon the request
of the college bookstore. (United States Code, Title 20, §
1015)
Existing state law:
1) The College Textbook Transparency Act, requires each campus
bookstore at any public postsecondary educational institution
to post in its store or on its Web site a disclosure of the
retail price policy on new and used textbooks. (Education
Code § 66406.7)
2) The College Textbook Affordability Act, establishes the Open
Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program to
incentivize faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost,
high-quality, open educational resources (OERs) at campuses
of the California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California
State University (CSU). This program provides funding for
faculty professional development, professional development
for staff, OER curation activities, curriculum modification
and requisite release time for faculty, and technology
support. (EC § 67420)
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
Web-based access for students, faculty and staff to find,
adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no
cost. (EC § 66408)
4) Establishes the California Open Education Resources Council
and requires the council to be responsible for, among other
things, developing 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 are to be developed or acquired. (EC §
66409)
5) 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
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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)
This bill:
1) Requires each campus of the CCC and the CSU, and requests
each campus of the UC, to do both of the following:
a) Clearly highlight, by means that may include a symbol
or logo in a conspicuous place on the online campus course
schedule, the course that at least in part use digital
course materials that are free of charge to students and
have a low-cost option for print versions.
b) Clearly communicate to students that some or all
course materials used for the identified courses are free
of charge and therefore not required to be purchased.
2) Authorizes the digital course materials to include OERs,
institutionally licensed campus library materials that all
students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other
properly licensed and adopted materials.
3) Provides for the following definitions:
a) "Course schedule" is a collection of available
classes, course sections, or both, published
electronically, before the start of an academic term.
b) "Open educational resources" are high-quality
teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in
the public domain or have been released under an
intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons
license, that permits their free use and repurposing by
others, and may include other resources that are legally
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available and free of cost to students. This bill
provides that "open educational resources" include, but
are not limited to, full courses, course materials,
modules, textbooks, faculty-created content, streaming
videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials,
or techniques used to support access to knowledge.
Comments
Existing efforts to increase access to OER. 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 December 2015, the California Open Education Resources
Council had identified more than 160 appropriate OER textbooks
for the 50 courses. The California Open Online Library for
Education, known as COOL4Ed, houses open textbooks, open course
materials, open courses, open access journals and articles,
textbook reviews, among other resources.
[http://www.cool4ed.org/index.html]
The multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online
Teaching (MERLOT), led by the CSU, offers free access to more
than 60,000 peer-reviewed online teaching and learning materials
across a wide range of disciplines.
Related Budget activity. The Governor's 2016-17 Budget proposes
$5 million in one-time funds to create "Zero-Textbook-Cost
Degrees" at the CCC. These degrees would allow students to
complete a degree entirely by taking courses that use only free
instructional materials. Under the Governor's proposal,
community colleges would compete for grants up to $500,000 each
to offer a zero-textbook-cost associate degree, certificate, or
credential program.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
Unknown costs, but would likely create a reimbursable state
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mandate, potentially in the tens of thousands, for community
college districts to highlight courses in online course
schedules. Potential additional one-time costs for any
district that only uses print schedules to convert to
electronic schedules. (Proposition 98)
Costs to CSU potentially around $100,000 annually. Likely
minor costs to UC. (General Fund)
SUPPORT: (Verified5/31/16)
California State University
OPPOSITION: (Verified5/31/16)
None received
Prepared by:Lynn Lorber / ED. / (916) 651-4105
5/31/16 22:24:21
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