BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1052|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 1052
Author: Steinberg (D), et al.
Amended: 5/29/12
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE : 7-1, 4/11/12
AYES: Lowenthal, Alquist, Hancock, Liu, Price, Simitian,
Vargas
NOES: Blakeslee
NO VOTE RECORDED: Runner, Huff, Vacancy
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 5-2, 5/24/12
AYES: Kehoe, Alquist, Lieu, Price, Steinberg
NOES: Walters, Dutton
SUBJECT : Postsecondary education: California Open
Education Resources Council
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill establishes the nine-member California
Open Education Resources Council (COERC), which will be
responsible for a variety of tasks geared toward reducing
textbook costs for the 50 most widely taken lower division
courses.
ANALYSIS : Existing law requires, by January 1, 2020,
publishers of textbooks used at the University of
California (UC), the California State University (CSU), the
California Community Colleges (CCC), or private
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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.
Existing law, the College Textbook Transparency Act,
requires faculty members and academic departments at an
institution of higher education to consider cost in the
adoption of textbooks, and requires textbook publishers to
disclose specified information.
Existing law requires the Trustees of the CSU and the Board
of Governors of the CCC, and requests the UC Regents to
work with the academic senates to encourage faculty to give
consideration to the least costly practices in assigning
textbooks, to encourage faculty to disclose to students how
new editions of textbooks are different from previous
editions and the cost to students for textbooks selected,
among other things. 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." Publishers are also 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.
This bill:
1. Establishes the COERC with the following membership:
A. Three faculty selected by the academic senate of
the UC.
B. Three faculty selected by the academic senate of
the CSU.
C. Three faculty selected by the academic senate of
the CCC.
2. Requires the COERC to do all of the following:
A. Develop a list of the 50 most widely taken lower
division courses in the public postsecondary
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education segments.
B. Create and administer a standardized, rigorous
review and approval process for open source materials
developed pursuant to this legislation.
C. Promote strategies for the production, access, and
use of open source materials.
D. Require publishers of textbooks used in the 50
most widely taken lower division courses to, as a
condition of the purchase of textbooks, to provide
the campus with at least three copies of the textbook
at no cost, for placement on reserve at the campus
library.
3. Requires the COERC to establish a competitive bid
process in which faculty members, publishers, and other
interested parties may apply for funds to produce 50
high-quality affordable, digital open source textbooks
and related materials in 2013.
4. Requires textbooks and other materials produced to be:
A. Placed under a creative commons attribution
license that allows others to use, distribute, and
create derivative works based upon the digital
material while still allowing the authors or creators
to receive credit for their efforts.
B. Modular in order to allow easy customization and
be encoded in an Extensible Markup Language format or
other successor format, so that the materials can be
made available on a wide range of platforms.
C. Submitted to and housed within the California Open
Source Digital Library when and if that library is
established pursuant to statute.
5. Expresses legislative findings and declarations relating
to the cost of college and university textbooks.
6. Is operative only if funds are appropriated in the
Budget Act, or if federal or private funds are made
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available, or any combination thereof.
Comments
Open Education Resources (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 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.
Related/Prior Legislation
SB 1053 (Steinberg) is a companion bill to this bill. The
bill establishes the California Digital Open Source
Library, to be jointly administered by the UC, CSU, and the
CCC for the purpose of housing open source materials. The
bill becomes operative only if the bill is enacted and
establishes the COERC.
SB 48 (Alquist), Chapter 161, Statutes of 2009, required
any individual firm, partnership, or corporation that
offers textbooks for sale at the UC, CSU, the CCC, or a
private postsecondary education institution in California,
to the extent practicable, make them available for sale in
electronic format by January 1, 2020. The bill was passed
by the Senate Education Committee on an 8-0 vote.
AB 1548 (Solorio), Chapter 574, Statutes of 2007,
established the College Textbook Transparency Act requiring
the disclosure of specified information and requiring
faculty to follow specified practices in the sale and
purchase of textbooks. The bill was passed by the Senate
Education Committee on a 9-0 vote.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
Substantial one-time costs for COERC activities.
Significant on-going costs to maintain and update digital
files.
COERC: The scope of the COERC costs will depend on the
degree to which the workload can be absorbed by existing
staff to the Intersegmental Committee of Academic
Senates. At a minimum, there will be significant costs
to staff the COERC, to complete the required activities,
to create and execute the competitive bid process, to
create contracts with the entities that ultimately
produce the content, and to establish procedures for
segment use of the final products.
Digital textbooks: The state will pay for the
creation/procurement of 50 high-quality, open source,
digital textbooks. The specific costs will be driven by
the market for the 50 courses for which textbooks will
be sought. These digital files will be (as is detailed
in companion bill SB 1053) stored and administered on an
ongoing basis.
Revenue loss: Upon implementation, there will likely
be a significant loss of state sales tax revenues, to
the extent that students were previously purchasing
textbooks for the 50 courses from sales tax-generating
businesses in California. Additionally, there will
likely be a substantial revenue loss to campus
bookstores, which are often self-supporting and, in some
cases, support other campus activities.
SUPPORT : (Verified 5/29/12)
California Community Colleges Board of Governors
California State University Academic Senate
California Teachers Association
Campaign for College Opportunity
Coast Community College District
Community College League of California
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Student Senate for California Community Colleges
OPPOSITION : (Verified 5/29/12)
American Publishers Association
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author's office,
the cost of textbooks represents a significant burden to
students and families. The author's office sites a recent
report by the CSU Chancellor's office that estimates CSU
students pay approximately $1,000 per year for textbooks.
The author's office also notes a finding by the Academic
Senate of the CCC that the cost of educational materials
has become a "visible barrier to college attendance for
many students." The author's office maintains that the old
model of rigid, printed textbooks and related materials can
fall short in providing flexible and dynamic teaching tools
necessary to maximize student success. This bill attempts
to address those costs for the 50 most common lower
division courses by requiring the availability of textbooks
for those courses to be available on reserve at the campus
library and by enabling instructional materials for those
courses to be available through OER.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The American Publishers
Association is opposed to this bill, they are concerned
with the creation of COERC and the cost to fund the
development of 50 higher education open source textbooks
that, at best, would not be available until 2014-15. Over
the past decade publishers have replaced printed books with
state-of-the-art interactive digital course materials that
have been proven to improve student success rate and lower
costs. The National Center for Academic Transformation
notes such materials are increasing student retention by
34% to 40% reducing institutions' cost per pupil for
instruction up to 41%.
PQ:kc 5/29/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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