BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 1053
AUTHOR: Steinberg
INTRODUCED: February 8, 2012
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 11, 2012
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Lynn Lorber
SUBJECT : Open Source Digital Library.
SUMMARY
This bill establishes the California Open Source Digital
Library for the purpose of housing open source materials.
BACKGROUND
Open education resources (OER) are either licensed under an
open copyright license or are in the public domain. OER
includes full courses, course textbooks and materials,
modules, videos, simulations, and tests. Open source gives
free access to the material as well as permission to
revise, reuse, remix and redistribute the materials at no
cost.
Existing digital libraries
The University of California administers the California
Digital Library which provides access to a digitized
worldwide collection of research, books, journals,
government publications and maps, allows faculty to publish
articles and communicate with other scholars, but does not
include textbooks and materials that are placed by faculty
on reserve at the campus bookstore. Faculty may have
students use material from the digital library but those
materials are not necessarily the textbook of record.
California State University administers the Affordable
Learning Solutions, which is a web-based system that houses
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online
Teaching (MERLOT), the Digital Marketplace and other tools
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that enable faculty and students to search for free or
low-cost materials, faculty to be recognized for work as
well as communicate with other scholars. Textbooks and
materials that are placed by faculty on reserve at the
campus bookstore are not included in MERLOT. Faculty may
have students use material from the digital library but
those materials are not necessarily the textbook of record.
In 2003, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District
received a one-time grant from the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation for Sharing of Free Intellectual Assets
project, which created freely available course materials
for eight college courses using a mixture of open education
resource and conventional commercial learning materials.
Current law authorized the California Community Colleges to
establish a pilot program to provide to faculty with the
information, methods and instructional materials to
establish open education resources centers. It appears
that both projects were halted due to budgetary
constraints.
The College Textbook Transparency Act requires, beginning
January 1, 2010:
1) Textbook publishers to print on the cover or within
each textbook a summary of the substantive content
differences between the new and prior editions, and
the copyright date of the previous edition.
2) Each campus bookstore at any public college or
university to post in its store or on its website a
disclosure of its retail pricing policy on new and
used textbooks.
3) Each public college or university to encourage
personnel responsible for selecting course materials
(typically faculty) to place their orders with
sufficient lead time to enable the bookstore to
confirm the availability of the requested materials.
(Education Code � 66406.7)
Current law requires:
1) Beginning January 1, 2020, any person, firm or
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corporation that publishes textbooks offered for sale
at the UC, CSU, CCC or a private college or university
to make the textbooks available for sale in an
electronic format. (EC � 66410)
2) The CSU and CCC, and encourages the UC, to work with
the academic senates of each segment to encourage
faculty to give consideration to the least costly
practices in assigning textbooks and to work with
publishers and college bookstores.
3) College bookstores to work with the academic senates
of each campus to review the process and timelines
involved in ordering and stocking textbooks and to
create bundles and packages of instructional materials
that are economically sound.
4) Urges textbook publishers to provide specific
information to faculty and post that information on
the company's website, give preference to supplements
rather than producing a new edition and disclose the
length of time the current edition is intended to be
in production. (EC � 66406)
5) The CSU and requests the UC to review and revise
student transfer policies to ensure that faculty may
choose a textbook selected for a transfer or general
education course, regardless of publication date, for
as long as the textbook is available, current and
reflects contemporary thinking. (EC � 66406.5)
ANALYSIS
This bill establishes the California Open Source Digital
Library for the purpose of housing open source materials.
Specifically, this bill:
1) Establishes the California Open Source Digital Library
(Library) for the purpose of housing open source
materials while providing a web-based tool for
students, faculty and staff to easily find, adopt,
utilize or modify course materials for little or no
cost.
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2) Requires the Library to be jointly administered by the
University of California (UC), California State
University (CSU) and California Community Colleges
(CCC).
3) Requires all material in the Library to bear 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 of the material to receive
credit for their efforts.
4) Provides that this bill is become operative only if an
unidentified Senate Bill establishes the California
Open Education Resources Council and becomes operative
on or by January 1, 2013.
5) States legislative intent relative to the provision of
incentives to assist and support faculty in choosing
lower cost alternatives such as open source textbooks
and related teaching tools.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author, "The cost
of attending California's public colleges and
universities has skyrocketed in recent years. While
fees often tend to be the most visible cost, other
non-tuition related costs, like the cost of textbooks,
significantly burden students and families as well.
Recent studies show that due to the cost of textbooks,
many students forego purchasing them altogether.
Through Open Education Resources (OER), California can
offer students in the 50 most widely taken
lower-division courses, the highest quality textbooks
and related materials for free online or for about $20
hardcopy. It also allows faculty to customize
learning materials in a manner that best suit their
classroom learning objectives."
2) Contents of digital library . This bill establishes a
digital library for the purpose of housing open source
materials but does not specify which materials are to
be deposited in this library. The author's intent is
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to make the implementation of this bill contingent
upon the implementation of the author's SB 1052, which
establishes a council to determine the 50 most widely
taken lower division courses, and review and approve
open source materials. The materials approved
pursuant to SB 1052 would be placed in the digital
library established by this bill.
3) How is this different from existing digital libraries ?
The only digital library maintained by a public
segment of higher education that includes textbooks
and materials required for courses was through
Foothill-De Anza Community College District. This
bill establishes a digital library to house textbooks
and instructional materials that are required for
courses, and provides access to those materials in one
repository rather than in silos specific to each
segment or campus.
4) Access for students at private universities ? It is
unclear if students attending private universities
will have access to the California Open Source Digital
Library. Presumably that decision will be made by the
administrators of the library (the three public
segments of postsecondary education).
5) Creative commons attribution license . A creative
commons license allows for the distribution of
copyrighted works. Conditioning a license with an
attribution means the work may be copied, distributed
and have derivative works based on it only if the
author or creator is given credit for the original
work. There are several conditions that may be added
to the license to protect the intellectual property of
the work. It may be possible for a third party to
create material derived from another's work and, while
give credit to the original author, profit without
paying royalties. However, those possibilities depend
upon the conditions which are placed on the license
and will presumably be decided by the council that
will review and approve material (pursuant to SB 1052)
to be housed in the California Digital Library.
6) Require or request ? This bill requires the UC to
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jointly administer the California Open Source Digital
Library. The UC enjoys certain constitutional
protections, and as such, staff recommends an
amendment to request rather than require the UC to
jointly administer the library.
7) Fiscal impact . The UC, California State University
and California Community Colleges (CCC) will likely
incur costs to create and maintain the digital
library. While this bill imposes duties upon the CCCs
it is not flagged as a mandate.
8) Technical amendment needed . This bill is contingent
upon an unidentified bill. The author's intent is to
make the implementation of this bill contingent upon
the implementation of SB 1052 (Steinberg).
9) Related legislation . SB 1052 (Steinberg) establishes
the California Open Education Resources Council for
the purpose of determining the 50 most widely taken
lower division courses in the public postsecondary
segments. SB 1052 requires the council to review and
approve open source materials, requires a publisher of
a textbook that is to be placed on reserve to provide
each campus with at least 3 copies of that textbook,
at no cost, for placement on reserve at a campus
library, and requires the council to establish a
process in which faculty members, publishers, and
other interested parties would apply for funds to
produce 50 high-quality, affordable, digital open
source textbooks and related materials. SB 1052 is
scheduled to be heard by this Committee on April 11,
2012.
10) Prior legislation . AB 2261 (Ruskin, Ch. 671, 2008)
authorized the CCC Board of Governors to establish a
pilot program to provide to faculty with the
information, methods and instructional materials to
establish open education resources centers. The
sunset date on this program was January 1, 2012 but it
appears the program was previously halted due to
budget constraints.
SUPPORT
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California Community Colleges Board of Governors
Campaign for College Opportunity
Student Senate for California Community Colleges
OPPOSITION
None on file.