BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1359
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Date of Hearing: June 21, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Jose Medina, Chair
SB
1359 (Block) - As Amended May 31, 2016
SENATE VOTE: 39-0
SUBJECT: Public postsecondary education: course materials.
SUMMARY: Requires each campus of the California Community
Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU), and
requests each campus of the University of California (UC), to
clearly highlight the courses that use digital course materials
that are free of charge and have a low-cost option for print
version. Specifically, 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, in a way that may include the use of
a symbol or logo, in a conspicuous place on the online
campus course schedule, the courses 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;
and,
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b) Clearly communicate to students that some or all course
materials used for the courses identified, as specified,
are free of charge and therefore not required to be
purchased.
2)Specifies that course materials, as specified, may include
open educational resources (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)Defines the following terms:
a) "Course schedule" is a collection of available classes,
course sections, or both, published electronically, before
the start of an academic term; and,
b) "OERs" 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 available
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors, and
requests the Regents of the 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
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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 (EC Section 66406).
2)Requires, via the College Textbook Transparency Act, 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 (EC Section 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
Web-based access for students, faculty and staff to find,
adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no
cost (EC Section 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
Section 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 Section 66410).
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6)Establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive
Program to incentivize faculty to accelerate the adoption of
lower cost, high-quality, OERs at CCC and CSU campuses. To
note, said 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 Section 67420).
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, unknown costs, but would likely create a reimbursable
state 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).
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 percent of tuition at a two-year community college
and 13 percent 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 percent, 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 percent of
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students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too
expensive, and 94 percent 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 courses they were able to take.
Need for the measure. According to the author, by requiring
California's postsecondary educational institutions to, "clearly
and explicitly highlight by a symbol or logo, any courses that
use free digital course material in their online or print course
catalogs, California's college students will be equipped with
easy-to-find information that assists them in navigating the
high cost of textbooks while at the same time create an
incentive for the mass adoption of free, open-sourced textbooks
and materials."
The author contends that this measure is an important step in
ensuring college textbooks and materials are affordable to all
students.
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 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.
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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. To note, as of December 2015,
the Council had identified more than 160 appropriate OER
textbooks for the 50 courses.
OER degrees. The Governor's 2016-17 Budget proposes $5 million
in one-time funds to create "Zero-Textbook-Cost Degrees" at the
CCC. Said degrees would allow students to complete a degree
entirely by taking courses that use only free instructional
materials. To note, 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.
Additionally, the national community college reform network
Achieving the Dream announced on June 14, 2016, an initiative to
develop degree programs using OERs. The initiative involves 38
community colleges throughout 13 states, including two
California community colleges (Santa Ana College and West Hills
College Lemoore).
This measure seeks to ensure that students are aware of OER and
other low cost options available to them when securing course
materials, before they register for classes.
Committee comment. As presently drafted, Committee staff
understands that some stakeholders wish to have the author
specify what is meant by the following terms in the measure:
"at least in part" and "low-cost option for print versions".
Moving forward, the author may wish to continue to work with the
stakeholders in potentially bringing clarity to said terms.
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Prior and related legislation. AB 1914 (Bonilla), which is
pending a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee, would,
among others, require 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, and requires the CSU Trustees to review
and adopt those policies.
AB 456 (Patterson) of 2015, which was not moved by the author,
would have required the CUS, and requested the UC, to offer
discounted electronic textbook rentals to their students for
each textbook assigned in a course, if the content of the
electronic and printed versions of the textbook were the same.
AB 2471 (Lara) of 2011, which was held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee, would have required e-textbooks used
in courses at the state's postsecondary institutions to include
specified consumer protections, and required the institutions to
adopt rules consistent with said requirements.
SB 1328 (De León) of 2011, which was not moved by the author in
this Committee, would have required a publisher to provide
textbook data in specified formats; encouraged public and
private postsecondary institutions to develop faculty textbook
adoption search engines with specified functions; and required
campus bookstores at private and public postsecondary
institutions to provide a student textbook comparison engine on
their Web sites.
SB 216 (Liu) of 2009, which was held in the Senate
Appropriations Committee, would have among others, required the
CSU and the CCC to post a list of required textbooks for each
course on the internet at least 30 days prior to the first day
of class, including the price charged for each textbook.
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SB 386 (Runner) of 2009, which was held in the Senate
Appropriations Committee, would have required a faculty member
at the CCC or the CSU, who adopts a new edition of a textbook
within three years after the adoption of a previous edition of
that textbook to prepare a justification for the adoption of the
new edition.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
California State Student Association
California State University
Community College League of California
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
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