(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program to provide incentives and reward campus, staff, and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that specified moneys for the program be used by campuses to create and support faculty and staff professional development, open educational resource curation activities, curriculum modification, or technology support for faculty, staff, and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (A) adopt a local campus resolution to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources and reduce the cost of textbooks and supplies for students, and (B) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan, in collaboration with students and the administration, that describes evidence of the campus commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the plan, and, if it meets these and other specified requirements, would authorize the Chancellor of the California State University to award an initial grant of up to $50,000 to the campus from the fund. The bill would require additional bonus grants to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would cap the number of initial grants that may be approved by the California Open Education Resources Council each award year at 100. The bill would require the California Digital Open Source Library, also known as the California Open Online Library for Education, in consultation with the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates, to report to the Legislature before September 1 of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on September 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

(2)Existing law appropriates, from specified funds, $5,000,000 to the Chancellor of the California State University to fund, among other things, the establishment and administration of the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library.

This bill would specify that $3,000,000 of those funds are reappropriated for allocation for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program. Of the remaining $2,000,000, the bill would specify that up to $200,000 may be used for the California Open Online Library for Education and up to $27,000 may be used for stipends to members of the California Open Education Resources Council, as specified.

(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program to provide incentives and reward campus, staff, and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that specified moneys for the program be used by campuses to create and support faculty and staff professional development, open educational resource curation activities, curriculum modification, or technology support for faculty, staff, and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (A) adopt a local campus resolution to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources and reduce the cost of textbooks and supplies for students, and (B) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan, in collaboration with students and the administration, that describes evidence of the campus commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the plan, and, if it meets these and other specified requirements, would authorize the Chancellor of the California State University to award an initial grant of up to $50,000 to the campus from the fund. The bill would require additional bonus grants to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would cap the number of initial grants that may be approved by the California Open Education Resources Council each award year at 100. The bill would require the California Digital Open Source Library, also known as the California Open Online Library for Education, in consultation with the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates, to report to the Legislature before September 1 of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on September 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

(2)Existing law appropriates, from specified funds, $5,000,000 to the Chancellor of the California State University to fund, among other things, the establishment and administration of the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library.

This bill would specify that $3,000,000 of those funds are reappropriated for allocation for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program. Of the remaining $2,000,000, the bill would specify that up to $200,000 may be used for the California Open Online Library for Education and up to $27,000 may be used for stipends to members of the California Open Education Resources Council, as specified.

(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program to provide incentives and reward campus, staff, and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that specified moneys for the program be used by campuses to create and support faculty and staff professional development, open educational resource curation activities, curriculum modification, or technology support for faculty, staff, and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (A) adopt a local campus resolution to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources and reduce the cost of textbooks and supplies for students, and (B) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan, in collaboration with students and the administration, that describes evidence of the campus commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the plan, and, if it meets these and other specified requirements, would authorize the Chancellor of the California State University to award an initial grant of up to $50,000 to the campus from the fund. The bill would require additional bonus grants to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would cap the number of initial grants that may be approved by the California Open Education Resources Council each award year at 100. The bill would require the California Digital Open Source Library, also known as the California Open Online Library for Education, in consultation with the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates, to report to the Legislature before September 1 of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on September 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

(2)Existing law appropriates, from specified funds, $5,000,000 to the Chancellor of the California State University to fund, among other things, the establishment and administration of the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library. Existing law reverts any of this $5,000,000 that is not 100% matched by private funds to a specified trust.

This bill would specify that $3,000,000 of those funds are reappropriated for allocation for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program. Of the remaining $2,000,000, the bill would specify that up to $200,000 may be used for the California Open Online Library for Education and up to $27,000 may be used for stipends to members of the California Open Education Resources Council, as specified.

(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund in the State Treasury Program to provide incentives and reward campus, staff, and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that specified moneys in the fund for the program be used by campuses to create and support faculty and staff professional development, open educational resource curation activities, curriculum modification, or technology support for faculty, staff, and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (1) (A) adopt a local campus resolution, in collaboration with students and the administration, demonstrating its commitment to resolution to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources, resources and reduce the cost of textbooks and supplies for students, and (2) (B) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan plan, in collaboration with students and the administration, that describes evidence of the campus commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the plan, and, if it meets these and other specified requirements, would authorize the respective segment office for the campus Chancellor of the California State University to award an initial grant of up to $10,000 $50,000 to the campus from the fund. The bill would authorize a campus to submit a number plans for approval that would be determined in accordance with the number of students enrolled on the campus, except as provided. The bill would require additional bonus grants of up to $10,000 to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would cap the number of plans initial grants that may be approved by the California Open Education Resources Council each award year, as specified. The bill would require a grant recipient to report to the California Open Education Resources Council within 90 days after the end date for each year of each awarded grant as to whether its benchmarks have been reached to determine whether it is eligible for the bonus grants. year at 100. The bill would require the California Digital Open Source Library, also known as the California Open Online Library for Education, in consultation with the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates Senates, to report to the Legislature before July September 1 of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July September 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

(2)Existing law appropriates, from specified funds, $5,000,000 to the Chancellor of the California State University to fund, among other things, the establishment and administration of the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library. Existing law reverts any of this $5,000,000 that is not 100% matched by private funds to a specified trust.

This bill would specify that $3,000,000 of those funds may be used for purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015, and would specify that funds appropriated for those purposes shall not be required to be matched by private funds. are reappropriated for allocation for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program. Of the remaining $2,000,000, the bill would specify that up to $200,000 may be used for the California Open Online Library for Education and up to $27,000 may be used for stipends to members of the California Open Education Resources Council, as specified.

(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund in the State Treasury to provide incentives and reward campus, staff, and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that moneys in the fund be used by campuses to create and support faculty and staff professional development, open educational resource curation activities, curriculum modification, or technology support for faculty, staff, and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (1) adopt a local campus resolution, in collaboration with students and the administration, stating its intent demonstrating its commitment to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources, and (2) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan that describes evidence of the campuss campus commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the plan, and, if it meets these and other specified requirements, would authorize the respective segment office for the campus to award an initial grant of up to $10,000 to the campus from the fund. The bill would authorize a campus to submit a number plans for approval that would be determined in accordance with the number of students enrolled on the campus, except as provided. The bill would require additional bonus grants of up to $10,000 to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would cap the number of plans that may be approved by the California Open Education Resources Council each award year, as specified. The bill would require a grant recipient to report to the California Open Education Resources Council within 90 days after the end date for each year of each awarded grant as to whether its benchmarks have been reached to determine whether it is eligible for the bonus grants. The bill would require the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates to report to the Legislature before July 1 of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

(2)Existing law appropriates, from specified funds, $5,000,000 to the Chancellor of the California State University to fund, among other things, the establishment and administration of the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library. Existing law reverts any of this $5,000,000 that is not 100% matched by private funds to a specified trust.

This bill would specify that those funds may be used for purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015, and would specify that funds appropriated for those purposes shall not be required to be matched by private funds. The bill would specify that the annual costs for the California Open Online Library for Education and administrative support for the California Open Education Resources Council shall not exceed $140,000 annually.

(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund in the State Treasury to provide incentives and reward campus, staff, and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that moneys in the fund be used by campuses to create and support faculty and staff professional development, open educational resource curation activities, curriculum modification, or technology support for faculty, staff, and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (1) adopt a local campus resolution, in collaboration with students and the administration, stating its intent to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources, and (2) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan that describes evidence of the campuss commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the plan, and, if it meets these and other specified requirements, would authorize the respective segment office for the campus to award an initial grant of up to $10,000 to the campus from the fund. The bill would authorize a campus to submit a number plans for approval that would be determined in accordance with the number of students enrolled on the campus, except as provided. The bill would require additional bonus grants of up to $10,000 to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would cap the number of plans that may be approved by the California Open Education Resources Council each award year at 100. year, as specified. The bill would require a grant recipient to report to the California Open Education Resources Council within 90 days after the end date for each year of each awarded grant as to whether its benchmarks have been reached to determine whether it is eligible for the bonus grants. The bill would require the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates to report to the Legislature before July 1 of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

(2)Existing law appropriates, from specified funds, $5,000,000 to the Chancellor of the California State University to fund, among other things, the establishment and administration of the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library. Existing law reverts any of this $5,000,000 that is not 100% matched by private funds to a specified trust.

This bill would specify that those funds may be used for purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015, and would specify that funds appropriated for those purposes shall not be required to be matched by private funds. The bill would specify that the annual costs for the California Open Online Library for Education and administrative support for the California Open Education Resources Council shall not exceed $140,000 annually.

(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund in the State Treasury to provide incentives and reward campus and campus, staff, and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that moneys in the fund be used by campuses to create and support faculty and staff professional development, open educational resource curation activities, faculty release time, curriculum modification, or technology support for faculty faculty, staff, and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (1) adopt a local campus resolution, in collaboration with students and the administration, stating its intent to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources, and (2) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan that describes evidence of the campuss commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the resolution and the plan, and, if they meet it meets these and other specified requirements, would authorize the respective segment office for the campus to award an initial grant of up to $10,000 to a local campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges the campus from the fund. The bill would require additional bonus grants of up to $10,000 to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would cap the number of plans that may be approved by the California Open Education Resources Council each award year at 100. The bill would require a grant recipient to report to the California Open Education Resources Council as to whether its benchmarks have been reached and to determine whether it is eligible for the bonus grants. The bill would also require the California Open Education Resources Council Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates to report to the Legislature before July 1 of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

(2)Existing law appropriates, from specified funds, $5,000,000 to the Chancellor of the California State University to fund, among other things, the establishment and administration of the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library. Existing law reverts any of this $5,000,000 that is not 100% matched by private funds to a specified trust.

This bill would specify that those funds may be used for purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015, and would specify that funds appropriated for those purposes shall not be required to be matched by private funds.

(1)Existing law establishes the segments of the postsecondary education system in the state, including the University of California, administered by the Regents of the University of California, the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.

This bill would establish the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality open educational resources, as defined. The bill would provide that funding for this act is to be provided in the annual Budget Act.

The bill would create the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund in the State Treasury to provide incentives and reward campus and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require that moneys in the fund be used by campuses to create and support faculty professional development, open educational resource curation activities, faculty release time, or technology support for the faculty, faculty and students, as specified. The bill would authorize the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges to (1) adopt a local campus resolution, in collaboration with students and the administration, stating its intent to increase student access to high-quality open educational resources. resources, and (2) upon adoption of the resolution, develop a specified plan that describes evidence of the campuss commitment and readiness to spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of open educational resources. The bill would require the respective segment office California Open Education Resources Council to review and approve the resolution and the plan, and, if they meet these and other specified requirements, would authorize an initial grant of up to $10,000 to a local campus of the California State University or the California Community Colleges from the fund for an unspecified amount for the purpose of establishing a plan and strategy, as specified. fund. The bill would require additional bonus grants of unspecified amounts up to $10,000 to be distributed to participating campuses if certain benchmarks are met. The bill would require a grant recipient to report to its respective segment office the California Open Education Resources Council as to whether its benchmarks have been reached and it is eligible for the bonus grants. The bill would also require the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, the Chancellor of the California State University, and the President of the University of California California Open Education Resources Council to report to the Legislature before July 1 of each year year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2020, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2021.

The Donahoe Higher Education Act sets forth the missions and functions of the segments of the higher education system in the state. These segments include the University of California, administered by the Regents of the University of California, the California State University, administered by the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, and private and independent institutions of higher education.

Provisions of the act apply to the University of California only to the extent that the regents act, by resolution, to make them applicable.

This bill would amend the act to require the board of governors and the trustees, and request the regents and each governing body of an accredited private postsecondary educational institution, to support the development, use, accessibility, and ongoing maintenance of course materials, including open textbooks and other open educational resources, and submit an annual report to the Legislature, on or before July 31, 2017, and on or before each July 31 thereafter, on the implementation, progress, and administration of those efforts at their respective institutions.

(Without Reference to File)

CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS

CSA1 Bill Id:AB 798

Author:(Bonilla)

As Amended Ver:September 9, 2015

Majority vote

(vote not available)

Original Committee Reference: HIGHER ED.

SUMMARY: Establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program to incentivize increased adoption of open source educational resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC), and the California State University (CSU).

The Senate amendments:

1. Specify that the California Digital Open Source Library, as specified, shall also be known as the California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed)

2. Specify that the Open Educational Resources (OER) Adoption Incentive Program is established to carry out the purpose of this measure; and, unless context otherwise requires, "program," as specified, means the OER Adoption Incentive Program.

3. Specify monies appropriated, as specified for the program, shall be used by CCC and CSU campuses to further the purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act, as established by this measure, including any of the following purposes:

   1. Faculty professional development (PD), which shall include learning about COOL4Ed; and, faculty who participate in this PD shall be reimbursed in accordance with their campus' approved plan, as specified;

   2. Professional development for staff whose work supports providing students with OER;

   3. Open educational resource curation activities. All new OER developed and available that are adopted as course material pursuant to this program shall be added to the established COOL4Ed;

   4. Curriculum modification and requisite release time for faculty in accordance with a campus' approved plan, as specified, related to the adoption of OER as course materials; and,

   5. Technology support for faculty, students, and staff whose work furthers the goals specified in a campus' approved plan.

4. Specify monies appropriated, as specified for the program, shall not be used for direct compensation for faculty members who adopt OER, except as provided to compensate for PD, as specified, or for purchasing new equipment.

5. Clarify that a Creative Commons license is a viable example of an OER property license.

6. Specify that in order to participate in the program, the local academic senate of a campus of the CCC or CSU shall do both of the following:

   1. Adopt a local campus resolution to increase student access to high-quality OER and reduce the cost of textbooks and supplies for students in course sections for which OER are to be adopted to accomplish cost savings for students; and,

   2. Approve a plan, in collaboration with students and campus administration, that describes evidence of the faculty's commitment and readiness to effectively use grant funds to support faculty adoption of OER.

7. Specify that the California OER Council may provide a model plan to campuses.

8. Specify a variety of details the plan shall include; and, that faculty, at their discretion, may choose courses that are to adopt OER under the plan.

9. Delete specified benchmarks the plans must outline.

10. Specify the academic senate of a local campus of the CCC or CSU may submit the resolution and plan developed, as specified, to the California OER Council as its application for an initial grant no later than June 30, 2016.

11. Specify the California OER Council shall make an initial grant to a campus within 60 days of the Council's receipt of the campus' application if the campus has satisfied the requirements, as specified.

12. Specify that the California OER Council may award up to 100 initial grants.

13. Clarify that if the total amount requested in applications received is equal to or less than two million dollars, the California OER Council shall make grants for each approved application equal to the amount requested in the application; and, if the total amount requested in applications received exceeds $2 million, the California OER Council shall make grants for the full amount requested in approved applications on a competitive basis based on the strength of evidence provided of faculty commitment to the adoption of OER.

14. Specify each application approved by the California OER Council shall be submitted by the Council to the CSU Chancellor no later than 30 days after the Council approves the application; and, the Chancellor shall award grants to recipients, as specified.

15. Specify that administrative support may be provided to the Council by COOL4Ed to help the Council carry out its duties.

16. Delete the $10,000 cap on an initial grant awards and bonus grants for up to three years if specified benchmarks are reached.

17. Specify that no later than June 30, 2018, a campus may apply for a bonus grant equal to the amount of its initial grant. The application shall include evidence that the campus has met or exceeded total cost savings of greater than 30% for the required number of course sections specified in the approved plan for the campus' initial grant in the 2017-18 academic year.

18. Specify that a campus may also compute the total cost savings for each course section and include that figure in its application for a bonus grant.

19. Specify that the total cost savings for each course section shall be the number of students enrolled in a course section multiplied by the per-student decrease in the costs of books and supplies for the course in the term resulting from the adoption of OER.

20. Specify the bonus grants shall be used to further the goals of the campus' approved plan for its initial grant.

21. Specify that if the total amount of requests in applications for bonus grants exceeds the total amount of funds available, the California OER Council shall award grants on a competitive basis to approved applications for the full amount of the initial grant based on the overall percentage savings achieved by the initial plan in the courses covered by the plan.

22. State the Legislature intends for the initial bonus grants to provide the impetus for campuses to adopt, and continue to use, OER as course materials.

23. Specify that the COOL4Ed, in consultation with the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates, shall report to the Legislature September 1 each year, as specified.

24. Change the sunset of the program to September 1, 2020.

25. Reappropriate, effective January 1, 2016, three million dollars of the monies appropriated, as specified, to the CSU Chancellor, without regard to fiscal years, for allocation for the program.

26. Clarify that monies allocated, as specified, or a portion of monies appropriated, as specified, shall not be encumbered unless at least 100% of that amount encumbered is matched by private funds, and, if not matched by private funds, shall revert to the Golden State Scholarshare Trust, for specified purposes.

27. Specify that of the unencumbered amount appropriated, as specified, as of June 30, 2015:

    1. Up to $200,000 may be used for administration of the COOL4Ed to continue developing and updating its services, as specified, until September 1, 2020; and,

    2. Up to $27,000 may be used for stipends to members of the California OER Council in order for the members to carry out their duties in accordance with the program.

28. Make minor clarifying and technical changes.

EXISTING LAW:

1. Requires the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors, 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. Current 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 (Education Code (EC) Section 66406).

2. Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act, which, among other things, 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 (EC Section 66406.7).

3. Establishes the California Digital Open Source Library as administered by the CSU, in coordination with the CCC, for the purpose of housing open source materials while providing an Internet Web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no cost. Specifies that the CSU shall also act in coordination with the University of California (UC) in administering the California Digital Open Source Library (EC Section 66408).

4. Establishes the California OER Council, composed of faculty leaders from the three segments of public postsecondary education (CCC, CSU, and UC), and shall be administered by the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of the three segments of public postsecondary education, or a successor group. Stipulates that the Council shall be responsible for the development of 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 shall 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).

FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the expansion of the use of previously appropriated funds will allow expenditure of approximately $4 million in unspent funds from the General Fund from the initial appropriation.

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% of tuition at a two-year community college and 13% 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%, 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% of students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too expensive, and 94% 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 course they were able to take.

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.

SB 1052 (Steinberg), Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012, established the California OER Council, to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds.

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. As of March 2015, the California OER Council reports that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER textbooks.

Analysis Prepared by: Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916) 319-3960 FN: 0002383

 THIRD READING  

Bill No: AB 798

Author: Bonilla (D)

Amended: 9/9/15 in Senate

Vote: 21

SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 7-0, 7/8/15

AYES: Liu, Runner, Hancock, Leyva, Monning, Pan, Vidak

NO VOTE RECORDED: Block, Mendoza

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 8/27/15

AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, Leyva, Mendoza, Nielsen

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15 - See last page for vote

SUBJECT: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015

SOURCE: California State Student Association

DIGEST: This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program incentivize increased adoption of open educational resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU).

Senate Floor Amendments of 9/9/15 clarify that the funds reappropriated for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program do not require matching private funds.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. 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 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)

2. Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act which requires faculty members and academic departments at an institution of higher education to consider cost in the adoption of textbooks and also requires textbook publishers to disclose specified information. (EC § 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 an internet web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no cost. Specifies that the CSU shall also act in coordination with the UC in administering the California Digital Open Source Library. (EC § 66408)

4. Establishes the California Open Educational Resources Council, composed of faculty leaders from the CCC, CSU, and UC, and administered by the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of these segments of public postsecondary education, or a successor group. Provides that the Council shall be responsible for the development of 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 shall be developed or acquired. (EC § 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 § 66410)

This bill:

1. Establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality, open educational resources (OERs). Provides that faculty development shall be a key component of this initiative, and requires the initiative to utilize the resources identified, housed, produced, and otherwise found appropriate pursuant to the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library.

2. Establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program and provides that the funds appropriated pursuant to Education Code § 69999.6 are available for its purposes, including faculty professional development, professional development for staff, OER curation activities, curriculum modification and requisite release time for faculty, and technology support, as specified.

3. Provides that the funds appropriated for the program shall not be used for direct compensation for faculty members who adopt OERs.

4. Defines OERs as high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students.

5. Requires a local academic senate of a campus to adopt a local resolution and submit a plan, as specified, in collaboration with students and campus administration that describes evidence of the faculty’s commitment and readiness to effectively use grant funds to support faculty adoption of OERs. Among other requirements, the plan shall include the number of academic departments expected to be involved, the number of course sections in which OERs will be adopted, and the percentage of cost savings for students anticipated for each of these course sections.

6. Requires the plan to identify the amount of the grant requested and provides that the amount shall not be greater than $50,000. Requires the plan to commit to achieving greater than 30 percent cost savings in at least 10 course sections, and specifies how the savings are to be calculated.

7. Provides that grant applicants may submit the resolution and the plan developed to the California Open Education Resources Council as its application for an initial grant no later than June 30, 2016. Requires the California Open Education Resources Council to make an initial grant to an applicant within 60 days if the applicant has satisfied all requirements and provides that it may award up to 100 initial grants. If the total amount requested is equal to or less than $2 million dollars, the California Open Education Resources Council shall make grants for each approved application based on the amount requested. If the total amount requested exceeds $2 million, the California Open Education Resources Council shall make grants for the full amount requested in approved applications on a competitive basis based on the strength of the evidence provided of faculty commitment to the adoption of OERs.

8. Provides that each approved application shall be submitted to the Chancellor of the California State University within 30 days, who shall then award the grants to recipients. Allows administrative support to be provided, as specified.

9. Provides that no later than June 30, 2018, a campus may apply for a bonus grant equal to the amount of its initial grant and shall include evidence that the campus has met or exceeded total cost savings of greater than 30 percent for the required number of course sections specified in the approved plan for the campus’ initial grant in the 2017-18 academic year. Allows a campus to compute the total cost savings for each course section. Requires the bonus grants to be used to further the goals of the campus’ approved plan for its initial grant.

10. Provides that if the total amount requested for bonus grants exceeds the total amount of funds available, the California Open Educational Resources Council shall award the grants on a competitive basis for the full amount based on the overall percentage savings achieved by the initial plan in the courses covered by the plan.

11. Requires the California Open Online Library for Education, in consultation with the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates, to report to the Legislature before September of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of OERs and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

12. Provides that the bill’s provisions shall become inoperative on July 1, 2020.

13. Reappropriates $3 million of the funds appropriated pursuant to Education Code § 69999.6 to the Chancellor of the California State University without regard to fiscal year, for allocation for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program. Allows up to $200,000 to be used for administrative costs and up to $27,000 to be used for stipends to members of the California Open Education Resources Council, as specified.

14. Clarifies that the funds reappropriated for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program do not require matching private funds.

Comments

Need for the bill. According to the author’s office, “many students and families are struggling to pay for a college education. One part of this problem is the rising cost of textbooks. Every year, students pay around $1,300 for textbooks as prices have increased at over three times the rate of inflation. The cost of textbooks comprises 40 percent of tuition at a two-year community college and 13 percent at a four-year public school. To afford these costs, students take on more debt, work more hours, or make choices that hinder their academic success.” This bill is intended to save college students money by providing incentives for local campuses to adopt OERs and reduce the cost of textbooks.

Open educational resources. OERs are educational materials that include 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, such as allowing students and faculty to access textbooks and related materials for free online or the purchase of hardcopies that are more affordable than traditional textbooks. They also enable faculty to customize learning materials to suit their course objectives and can provide students with a more flexible set of tools that can contribute to a richer learning experience.

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 March 2015, the California Open Education Resources Council reports that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER textbooks.

Cost of textbooks. 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. A 2014 Student Public Interest Research Group study found that 65 percent of students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too expensive, and 94 percent of those students felt that in doing so, that would hurt their grade in a course. Additionally, almost half of the students reported that the cost of textbooks impacted how many courses they were able to take at a time.

Incentives for faculty. One could argue the bill is unnecessary since faculty already have the ability to adopt OERs. The author’s office indicates that the main hurdles preventing the adoption of OERs include lack of time for faculty to develop them or to adapt their classes, lack of information on currently available OERs, and lack of technological support for faculty. According to a presentation by faculty and administrators working on the development and implementation of Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, professors are not adopting OERs quickly because they do not know what is available or believe it will be difficult to do. The bill seeks to address these hurdles by leveraging existing funds to provide the time and support for faculty to adopt OERs. Specifically, the bill provides yearly benchmark incentives to accelerate the rate of adoption at local campuses.

Source of funding. SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) established the California OER Council, to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds. This bill proposes to utilize unspent funds from this appropriation for its purposes.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: No

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the expansion of the use of previously appropriated funds will allow expenditure of approximately $3 million in unspent funds from the initial appropriation.

SUPPORT: (Verified 9/9/15)

California State Student Association (source)

Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office

California State University

Cerritos Community College District

Community College League of California

OpenStax

TechNet

OPPOSITION: (Verified 9/9/15)

None received

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15

AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins

NO VOTE RECORDED: Dahle, Holden

Prepared by: Lenin Del Castillo / ED. / (916) 651-4105

9/10/15 23:15:35

**** END ****

 THIRD READING  

Bill No: AB 798

Author: Bonilla (D)

Amended: 9/4/15 in Senate

Vote: 21

SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 7-0, 7/8/15

AYES: Liu, Runner, Hancock, Leyva, Monning, Pan, Vidak

NO VOTE RECORDED: Block, Mendoza

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 8/27/15

AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, Leyva, Mendoza, Nielsen

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15 - See last page for vote

SUBJECT: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015

SOURCE: California State Students Association

DIGEST: This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program incentivize increased adoption of open educational resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU).

Senate Floor Amendments of 9/4/15 amendments make various changes regarding the requirements for participating in the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program, including the provision of specific criteria to be included as part of a local campus’ resolution and plan. The amendments also limit the total amount of initial grants to be awarded at $2 million and provide that if the amount requested exceeds this total, the grant applications shall be approved on a competitive basis. Further, the amendments limit and modify the criteria for the receipt of bonus grants for applicants.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. 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 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)

2. Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act which requires faculty members and academic departments at an institution of higher education to consider cost in the adoption of textbooks and also requires textbook publishers to disclose specified information. (EC § 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 an internet web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no cost. Specifies that the CSU shall also act in coordination with the UC in administering the California Digital Open Source Library. (EC § 66408)

4. Establishes the California Open Educational Resources Council, composed of faculty leaders from the CCC, CSU, and UC, and administered by the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of these segments of public postsecondary education, or a successor group. Provides that the Council shall be responsible for the development of 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 shall be developed or acquired. (EC § 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 § 66410)

This bill:

1. Establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality, open educational resources (OERs). Provides that faculty development shall be a key component of this initiative, and requires the initiative to utilize the resources identified, housed, produced, and otherwise found appropriate pursuant to the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library.

2. Establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program and provides that the funds appropriated pursuant to Education Code § 69999.6 are available for its purposes, including faculty professional development, professional development for staff, OER curation activities, curriculum modification and requisite release time for faculty, and technology support, as specified.

3. Provides that the funds appropriated for the program shall not be used for direct compensation for faculty members who adopt OERs.

4. Defines OERs as high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students.

5. Requires a local academic senate of a campus to adopt a local resolution and submit a plan, as specified, in collaboration with students and campus administration that describes evidence of the faculty’s commitment and readiness to effectively use grant funds to support faculty adoption of OERs. Among other requirements, the plan shall include the number of academic departments expected to be involved, the number of course sections in which OERs will be adopted, and the percentage of cost savings for students anticipated for each of these course sections.

6. Requires the plan to identify the amount of the grant requested and provides that the amount shall not be greater than $50,000. Requires the plan to commit to achieving greater than 30 percent cost savings in at least 10 course sections, and specifies how the savings are to be calculated.

7. Provides that grant applicants may submit the resolution and the plan developed to the California Open Education Resources Council as its application for an initial grant no later than June 30, 2016. Requires the California Open Education Resources Council to make an initial grant to an applicant within 60 days if the applicant has satisfied all requirements and provides that it may award up to 100 initial grants. If the total amount requested is equal to or less than $2 million dollars, the California Open Education Resources Council shall make grants for each approved application based on the amount requested. If the total amount requested exceeds $2 million, the California Open Education Resources Council shall make grants for the full amount requested in approved applications on a competitive basis based on the strength of the evidence provided of faculty commitment to the adoption of OERs.

8. Provides that each approved application shall be submitted to the Chancellor of the California State University within 30 days, who shall then award the grants to recipients. Allows administrative support to be provided, as specified.

9. Provides that no later than June 30, 2018, a campus may apply for a bonus grant equal to the amount of its initial grant and shall include evidence that the campus has met or exceeded total cost savings of greater than 30 percent for the required number of course sections specified in the approved plan for the campus’ initial grant in the 2017-18 academic year. Allows a campus to compute the total cost savings for each course section. Requires the bonus grants to be used to further the goals of the campus’ approved plan for its initial grant.

10. Provides that if the total amount requested for bonus grants exceeds the total amount of funds available, the California Open Educational Resources Council shall award the grants on a competitive basis for the full amount based on the overall percentage savings achieved by the initial plan in the courses covered by the plan.

11. Requires the California Open Online Library for Education, in consultation with the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates, to report to the Legislature before September of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of OERs and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

12. Provides that the bill’s provisions shall become inoperative on July 1, 2020.

13. Reappropriates $3 million of the funds appropriated pursuant to Education Code § 69999.6 to the Chancellor of the California State University without regard to fiscal year, for allocation for the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program. Allows up to $200,000 to be used for administrative costs and up to $27,000 to be used for stipends to members of the California Open Education Resources Council, as specified.

Comments

Need for the bill. According to the author’s office, “many students and families are struggling to pay for a college education. One part of this problem is the rising cost of textbooks. Every year, students pay around $1,300 for textbooks as prices have increased at over three times the rate of inflation. The cost of textbooks comprises 40 percent of tuition at a two-year community college and 13 percent at a four-year public school. To afford these costs, students take on more debt, work more hours, or make choices that hinder their academic success.” This bill is intended to save college students money by providing incentives for local campuses to adopt OERs and reduce the cost of textbooks.

Open educational resources. OERs are educational materials that include 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, such as allowing students and faculty to access textbooks and related materials for free online or the purchase of hardcopies that are more affordable than traditional textbooks. They also enable faculty to customize learning materials to suit their course objectives and can provide students with a more flexible set of tools that can contribute to a richer learning experience.

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 March 2015, the California Open Education Resources Council reports that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER textbooks.

Cost of textbooks. 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. A 2014 Student Public Interest Research Group study found that 65 percent of students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too expensive, and 94 percent of those students felt that in doing so, that would hurt their grade in a course. Additionally, almost half of the students reported that the cost of textbooks impacted how many courses they were able to take at a time.

Incentives for faculty. One could argue the bill is unnecessary since faculty already have the ability to adopt OERs. The author’s office indicates that the main hurdles preventing the adoption of OERs include lack of time for faculty to develop them or to adapt their classes, lack of information on currently available OERs, and lack of technological support for faculty. According to a presentation by faculty and administrators working on the development and implementation of Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, professors are not adopting OERs quickly because they do not know what is available or believe it will be difficult to do. The bill seeks to address these hurdles by leveraging existing funds to provide the time and support for faculty to adopt OERs. Specifically, the bill provides yearly benchmark incentives to accelerate the rate of adoption at local campuses.

Source of funding. SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) established the California OER Council, to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds. This bill proposes to utilize unspent funds from this appropriation for its purposes.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: No

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the expansion of the use of previously appropriated funds will allow expenditure of approximately $3 million in unspent funds from the initial appropriation.

SUPPORT: (Verified 9/8/15)

California State Student Association (source)

Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office

California State University

Cerritos Community College District

Community College League of California

OpenStax

TechNet

OPPOSITION: (Verified 9/8/15)

None received

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15

AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins

NO VOTE RECORDED: Dahle, Holden

Prepared by: Lenin Del Castillo / ED. / (916) 651-4105

9/8/15 15:02:50

**** END ****

 THIRD READING  

Bill No: AB 798

Author: Bonilla (D)

Amended: 8/31/15 in Senate

Vote: 21

SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 7-0, 7/8/15

AYES: Liu, Runner, Hancock, Leyva, Monning, Pan, Vidak

NO VOTE RECORDED: Block, Mendoza

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 8/27/15

AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, Leyva, Mendoza, Nielsen

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15 - See last page for vote

SUBJECT: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015

SOURCE: California State Student Association

DIGEST: This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program to incentivize increased adoption of open educational resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU).

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. 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 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)

2. Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act which requires faculty members and academic departments at an institution of higher education to consider cost in the adoption of textbooks and also requires textbook publishers to disclose specified information. (EC § 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 an internet web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no cost. Specifies that the CSU shall also act in coordination with the UC in administering the California Digital Open Source Library. (EC § 66408)

4. Establishes the California Open Educational Resources Council, composed of faculty leaders from the CCC, CSU, and UC, and administered by the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of these segments of public postsecondary education, or a successor group. Provides that the Council shall be responsible for the development of 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 shall be developed or acquired. (EC § 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 § 66410)

ANALYSIS

This bill:

1. Establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality, open educational resources (OERs). Provides that faculty development shall be a key component of this initiative, and requires the initiative to utilize the resources identified, houses, produced, and otherwise found appropriate to the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library.

2. Establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund to provide incentives and rewards for campus and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of OERs for the purpose of reducing students' cost and improving access to quality materials.

3. Provides that moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, are to create and support faculty professional development, professional development for staff, OER curation activities, curriculum modification, and technology support for faculty, students, and staff.

4. Prohibits moneys in the fund from being used for direct compensation for faculty who adopt OERs or for purchasing new equipment.

5. Defines OERs as high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students.

6. Authorizes campuses, upon adoption of a local resolution demonstrating its commitment to increase student access to high-quality OERs and in collaboration with students and the administration, to develop a plan that describes evidence of the campus’ commitment and readiness to effectively spend grant money to support faculty adoption of OERs, as specified. The plan shall include three benchmarks focusing on reducing costs for students and increasing the adoption of high-quality OERs consisting of annual goals for three years.

7. Provides that a plan that demonstrates readiness requirements shall be given priority for approval, as specified, including concrete benchmarks that demonstrate quantifiable outcomes to be achieved from its implementation, and the utilization of available OERs.

8. Provides that each local campus may submit the resolution and plan to the California Open Education Resources Council for an initial grant, and one additional plan for every additional 10,000 students. A local campus that is receiving a grant or bonus grant may submit no more than the maximum number of plans for an initial grant minus the number of the campus’ plans that are currently receiving a grant or bonus grant.

9. Requires the California Open Education Resources Council to review the plan, and approve it if it meets the requirements, as specified. Provides that the plans shall be submitted and approved in one of two rounds, as specified, with up to 100 plans approved per year. For a plan that is not approved, the council shall recommend modifications to increase the likelihood of the plan’s success. Allows administrative support to be provided by COOL4Ed to the California Open Education Resources Council.

10. Limits an initial grant at $10,000 and provides that each campus shall receive an annual bonus grant of up to $10,000 for up to three years for meeting established performance benchmarks for accelerating usage of OERs in courses, as specified. Provides that a plan that has not met a benchmark shall not be awarded any bonus grant and shall be deemed terminated. Allows additional bonus grants if sufficient funds remain available in the Open Educational Adoption Incentive Fund after the first bonus grants for reaching the third benchmark are awarded.

11. Requires the bonus grants to be used for any, or some combination, of faculty professional development, professional development of staff, OER curation activities, curriculum modification, and technological support for faculty, students, and staff.

12. Requires a grant recipient to report to the California Open Education Resources Council as to whether its benchmarks have been reached to determine whether it is eligible for bonus grants, as specified.

13. Requires the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates to report to the Legislature before July of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of OERs and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

14. Provides that the bill’s provisions shall become inoperative on July 1, 2020.

15. Authorizes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to be funded from the existing appropriation for the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library, as specified.

16. Specifies that moneys appropriated for purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 shall not be required to be matched by private funds.

17. Requires 25 percent of each grant awarded to a campus for purposes of this bill shall be matched by the campus and used by the campus to ensure administrative and faculty support of the campus’ plan.

18. Specifies that money provided to a member of the California Open Education Resources Council for purposes of the council carrying out its duties shall not exceed $8,000 total and shall be provided as a stipend. Provides that no additional money shall be provided for travel purposes.

Comments

Need for the bill. According to the author’s office, “many students and families are struggling to pay for a college education. One part of this problem is the rising cost of textbooks. Every year, students pay around $1,300 for textbooks as prices have increased at over three times the rate of inflation. The cost of textbooks comprises 40 percent of tuition at a two-year community college and 13 percent at a four-year public school. To afford these costs, students take on more debt, work more hours, or make choices that hinder their academic success.” This bill is intended to save college students money by providing incentives for local campuses to adopt OERs and reduce the cost of textbooks.

Open educational resources. OERs are educational materials that include 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, such as allowing students and faculty to access textbooks and related materials for free online or the purchase of hardcopies that are more affordable than traditional textbooks. They also enable faculty to customize learning materials to suit their course objectives and can provide students with a more flexible set of tools that can contribute to a richer learning experience.

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 March 2015, the California Open Education Resources Council reports that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER textbooks.

Cost of textbooks. 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. A 2014 Student Public Interest Research Group study found that 65 percent of students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too expensive, and 94 percent of those students felt that in doing so, that would hurt their grade in a course. Additionally, almost half of the students reported that the cost of textbooks impacted how many courses they were able to take at a time.

Incentives for faculty. One could argue the bill is unnecessary since faculty already have the ability to adopt OERs. The author’s office indicates that the main hurdles preventing the adoption of OERs include lack of time for faculty to develop them or to adapt their classes, lack of information on currently available OERs, and lack of technological support for faculty. According to a presentation by faculty and administrators working on the development and implementation of Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, professors are not adopting OERs quickly because they do not know what is available or believe it will be difficult to do. The bill seeks to address these hurdles by leveraging existing funds to provide the time and support for faculty to adopt OERs. Specifically, the bill provides yearly benchmark incentives to accelerate the rate of adoption at local campuses.

Source of funding. SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) established the California OER Council, to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds. This bill proposes to utilize unspent funds from this appropriation for its purposes.

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: No

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the expansion of the use of previously appropriated funds will allow expenditure of approximately $4 million in unspent funds from the initial appropriation.

SUPPORT: (Verified 8/27/15)

California State Student Association (source)

Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office

California State University

Cerritos Community College District

Community College League of California

OpenStax

TechNet

OPPOSITION: (Verified 8/27/15)

None received

ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/4/15

AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins

NO VOTE RECORDED: Dahle, Holden

Prepared by: Lenin Del Castillo / ED. / (916) 651-4105

8/30/15 19:11:05

**** END ****

SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair

2015 - 2016 Regular Session

AB 798 (Bonilla) - College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015.

*********** ANALYSIS ADDENDUM – SUSPENSE FILE ***********

The following information is revised to reflect amendments

adopted by the committee on August 27, 2015

Bill Summary:

This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program to incentivize increased adoption of open educational resources at California Community Colleges and the California State University campuses.

Fiscal Impact:

• The expansion of the use of previously appropriated funds will allow expenditure of approximately $4 million in unspent funds from the initial appropriation. (General Fund)

Author Amendments:

Eliminate cost pressure to continue funding for the California Open Online Library for Education and other clarifying amendments.

-- END --

SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair

2015 - 2016 Regular Session

AB 798 (Bonilla) - College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015.

This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.

Bill Summary:

This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program to incentivize increased adoption of open educational resources (OER) at California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU) campuses.

Fiscal Impact:

• The expansion of the use of previously appropriated funds will allow expenditure of approximately $4 million in unspent funds from the initial appropriation to go mostly towards local incentive grants to adopt OERs. (General Fund)

• Cost pressure of $140,000 to continue to fund the California Digital Open Source Library annually once the original appropriation is depleted. (General Fund)

Background:

1. OERs are educational materials that include 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, or redistribute the materials.

Existing law 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 assigning textbooks and to encourage faculty to disclose to students how new editions of textbooks are different from previous editions.

Existing law 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 an internet web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no cost. (EC § 66408)

SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) established the California OER Council (Council), to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material is developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by non-state funds.

Proposed Law:

This bill establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of OERs.

This bill establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund to provide incentives and reward campus and faculty efforts to accelerate adoption of open educational resources. Moneys in this fund are required to be used by the CCC and the CSU for the following purposes related to OERs:

• Professional development;

• Curating activities;

• Curriculum modification; and

• Technology support for faculty, students, and staff.

A CSU or CCC campus may develop a plan that describes evidence of the campus’s commitment and readiness to effectively spend grant money from the fund to support faculty adoption of OERs. The plan must include various components tsuch as: goals for three years that focus on reducing costs for the students and increasing the adoption of OERs; the use of available OERs; and an assessment of the costs for students to purchase OER course materials. A campus may submit the plan to Council for an initial grant from the fund.

The Council is required to review plans and can approve up to 100 plans per year. Initial grants must not exceed $10,000. Campuses then receive bonus grants of $10,000 for each year of implementation for up to three years that it meets its own established performance benchmarks for accelerating usage of OERs. Of each grant award, 25 percent must be matched by the receiving campus.

This bill authorizes the use of $5 million appropriated in existing law in the 2011-12 fiscal year for funding grants and administrative costs of the College Textbook Affordability Act and exempts it from the requirement to be matched by private funds as required for the other uses of these funds. Of this amount, up to $140,000 annually is to support the California Digital Open Source Library (COOL4Ed) to continue developing and updating its services to provide faculty, staff, and students convenient access to free and open sources materials and for administrative activities to support the Council.

The Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates is required to report to the Legislature each year beginning in 2018 as to whether grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open educational resources and decreasing textbook costs for students.

Related Legislation:

SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) created the California OER Council to identify 50 courses where OERs could be created or identified in order to reduce costs for students.

SB 1053 (Steinberg, Chapter 622, Statutes of 2012) created the California Digital Open Source Library to provide OERs in one central location.

-- END --

SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

Senator Carol Liu, Chair

2015 - 2016 Regular

Bill No: AB 798

Subject: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015

SUMMARY

This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program to incentivize increased adoption of open educational resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU).

BACKGROUND

Existing law:

1. 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 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)

2. Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act which requires faculty members and academic departments at an institution of higher education to consider cost in the adoption of textbooks and also requires textbook publishers to disclose specified information. (EC § 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 an internet web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no cost. Specifies that the CSU shall also act in coordination with the UC in administering the California Digital Open Source Library. (EC § 66408)

4. Establishes the California Open Educational Resources Council, composed of faculty leaders from the CCC, CSU, and UC, and administered by the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of these segments of public postsecondary education, or a successor group. Provides that the Council shall be responsible for the development of 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 shall be developed or acquired. (EC § 66409)

5. Requires, by January 1, 2020, publishers of textbooks used at the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and the California Community College (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 § 66410)

ANALYSIS

This bill:

1. Establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to reduce costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality, open educational resources (OERs). Provides that faculty development shall be a key component of this initiative, and requires the initiative to utilize the resources identified, houses, produced, and otherwise found appropriate to the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library.

2. Establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund to provide incentives and rewards for campus and faculty efforts to accelerate the adoption of OERs for the purpose of reducing students' cost and improving access to quality materials.

3. Provides that moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, are to create and support faculty professional development, professional development for staff, OER curation activities, curriculum modification, and technology support for faculty, students, and staff.

4. Prohibits moneys in the fund from being used for direct compensation for faculty who adopt OERs or for purchasing new equipment.

5. Defines OERs as high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students.

6. Authorizes campuses, upon adoption of a local resolution stating its intent to increase student access to high-quality OERs and in collaboration with students and the administration, to develop a plan that describes evidence of the campus’ commitment and readiness to effectively spend grant money to support faculty adoption of OERs, as specified. The plan shall include three benchmarks focusing on reducing costs for students and increasing the adoption of high-quality OERs consisting of annual goals for three years.

7. Provides that a plan that demonstrates readiness requirements shall be given priority for approval, as specified, including concrete benchmarks that demonstrate quantifiable outcomes to be achieved from its implementation, the utilization of available open educational resources (OERs), and an estimate of the amount of money to be saved per student.

8. Provides that each local campus may submit the resolution and plan to the California Open Education Resources Council for an initial grant.

9. Requires the California Open Education Resources Council to review the plan, and approve it if it meets the requirements, as specified. Provides that the plans shall be submitted and approved in one of two rounds, as specified, with up to 100 plans approved per year. Allows administrative support to be provided by COOL4Ed to the California Open Education Resources Council.

10. Limits an initial grant at $10,000 and provides that each campus shall receive an annual bonus grant of up to $10,000 for up to three years for meeting established performance benchmarks for accelerating usage of OERs in courses, as specified. Allows additional bonus grants if sufficient funds remain available in the Open Educational Adoption Incentive Fund after the first bonus grants for reaching the third benchmark are awarded.

11. Requires the bonus grants to be used for any, or some combination, of faculty professional development, professional development of staff, OER curation activities, curriculum modification, and technological support for faculty, students, and staff.

12. Requires a grant recipient to report to the California Open Education Resources Council as to whether its benchmarks have been reached to determine whether it is eligible for bonus grants, as specified.

13. Requires the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates to report to the Legislature before July of each year, commencing in 2018, as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of OERs and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

14. Provides that the bill’s provisions shall become inoperative on July 1, 2020.

15. Authorizes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 to be funded from the existing appropriation for the California Open Education Resources Council and the California Digital Open Source Library, as specified.

16. Specifies that moneys appropriated for purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 shall not be required to be matched by private funds.

17. Requires 25 percent of each grant awarded to a campus for purposes of this bill shall be matched by the campus and used by the campus to ensure administrative and faculty support of the campus’ plan.

18. Specifies that money provided to a member of the California Open Education Resources Council for purposes of the council carrying out its duties shall not exceed $3,000 total and shall be provided as a stipend. Provides that no additional money shall be provided for travel purposes.

STAFF COMMENTS

1. Need for the bill. According to the author’s office, “many students and families are struggling to pay for a college education. One part of this problem is the rising cost of textbooks. Every year, students pay around $1,300 for textbooks as prices have increased at over three times the rate of inflation. The cost of textbooks comprises 40 percent of tuition at a two-year community college and 13 percent at a four-year public school. To afford these costs, students take on more debt, work more hours, or make choices that hinder their academic success.” This bill is intended to save college students money by providing incentives for local campuses to adopt open educational resources (OERs) and reduce the cost of textbooks.

2. Open educational resources. OERs are educational materials that include 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, such as allowing students and faculty to access textbooks and related materials for free online or the purchase of hardcopies that are more affordable than traditional textbooks. They also enable faculty to customize learning materials to suit their course objectives and can provide students with a more flexible set of tools that can contribute to a richer learning experience.

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 March 2015, the California Open Education Resources Council reports that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER textbooks.

3. Cost of textbooks. 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. A 2014 Student Public Interest Research Group study found that 65 percent of students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too expensive, and 94 percent of those students felt that in doing so, that would hurt their grade in a course. Additionally, almost half of the students reported that the cost of textbooks impacted how many courses they were able to take at a time.

4. Incentives for faculty. One could argue the bill is unnecessary since faculty already have the ability to adopt OERs. The author’s office indicates that the main hurdles preventing the adoption of OERs include lack of time for faculty to develop them or to adapt their classes, lack of information on currently available OERs, and lack of technological support for faculty. According to a presentation by faculty and administrators working on the development and implementation of Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, professors are not adopting OERs quickly because they do not know what is available or believe it will be difficult to do. The bill seeks to address these hurdles by leveraging existing funds to provide the time and support for faculty to adopt open educational resources (OERs). Specifically, the bill would provide yearly benchmark incentives to accelerate the rate of adoption at local campuses.

5. Source of funding. SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) established the California OER Council, to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds. This bill proposes to utilize unspent funds from this appropriation for its purposes.

6. Fiscal impact. According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, this bill would utilize approximately $4 million in previously appropriated funds that remain available for implementation of SB 1052 and SB 1053 (Steinberg, Chapter 622, Statutes of 2012) for the purposes of this bill, including the California Open Education Resource Council's administrative costs.

7. Related and prior legislation.

SB 1052 (Steinberg, Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012) created the California Open Educational Resources Council to identify 50 courses where OERs could be created or identified in order to reduce costs for students.

SB 1053 (Steinberg, Chapter 622, Statutes of 2012) created the California Digital Open Source Library to provide OERs in one central location.

SUPPORT

Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office

California State Student Association (sponsor)

California State University

Cerritos Community College District

Community College League of California

OpenStax

TechNet

OPPOSITION

None received.

-- END --

ASSEMBLY THIRD READING

ATR Bill Id:AB 798

Author:(Bonilla)

As Amended Ver:June 2, 2015

Majority vote

SUMMARY: Establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program to incentivize increased adoption of open source educational resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC), the California State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC). Specifically, this bill:

1. Establishes the Open Educational Resources (OER) Adoption Incentive Fund to provide incentives and rewards for campus and faculty efforts to accelerate use of OER in order to reduce students' cost and improve access to such materials.

2. Stipulates that moneys in the fund are to support faculty professional development, OER curation activities, and technology support for faculty.

3. Stipulates that the acceleration initiative (to use more OER) shall use, in addition to any other appropriate resources, those identified, housed, produced, and otherwise found appropriate pursuant to the California OER Council and the California Digital Open Sources Library.

4. Authorizes campuses, upon adoption of a local resolution, to submit the resolution to their respective campus governing board for an initial grant to establish a strategy, as specified, for meeting the above goals. The strategy is to include three campus-determined benchmarks for each of the following three years.

5. Requires the respective segment offices to review, approve, and administer the grants.

6. Stipulates that after receiving the initial grant, the campuses shall receive bonus grants in each of the following three years if they meet the corresponding benchmarks for those years. The maximum amounts of the initial grant and bonus grants are unspecified.

7. Stipulates that the bonus grants are to be administered locally by the academic senate in collaboration with the campus president, provost, or chief academic officer and the campus student body organization.

8. Requires the Chancellors of the CCC and the CSU and the UC President to report annually whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open source educational resources and decreasing students' textbook costs.

9. Specifies that moneys, or a portion of moneys, appropriated, as specified, shall not be encumbered unless at least 100% of that amount encumbered is matched by private funds; that moneys appropriated, as specified, that are not matched by private funds shall revert to the Golden State Scholarshare Trust for purposes of the Governor's Scholarship Programs; and, moneys appropriated, as specified, shall not require a match by private funds.

EXISTING LAW:

1. Requires the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors, 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. Current 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 (Education Code (EC) Section 66406).

2. Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act, which, among other things, 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 (EC Section 66406.7).

3. Establishes the California Digital Open Source Library as administered by the CSU, in coordination with the CCC, for the purpose of housing open source materials while providing an Internet Web-based way for students, faculty, and staff to easily find, adopt, utilize, or modify course materials for little or no cost. Specifies that the CSU shall also act in coordination with the UC in administering the California Digital Open Source Library (EC 66408).

4. Establishes the California OER Council, composed of faculty leaders from the three segments of public postsecondary education (CCC, CSU, and UC), and shall be administered by the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates of the three segments of public postsecondary education, or a successor group. Stipulates that the Council shall be responsible for the development of 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 shall be developed or acquired (EC 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).

FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, approximately $4 million in previously appropriated funds that remain available for implementation of SB 1052 (Steinberg), Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012 and SB 1053 (Steinberg), Chapter 622, Statutes of 2012, would be available for the purposes of this bill, including the OER Council's administrative costs.

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% of tuition at a two-year community college and 13% 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%, 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% of students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too expensive, and 94%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 course they were able to take.

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.

SB 1052 of 2012, established the California OER Council, to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds.

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. As of March 2015, the California OER Council reports that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER textbooks.

Analysis Prepared by: Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916) 319-3960 FN: 0000888

Date of Hearing: May 6, 2015

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Jimmy Gomez, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 798

Author:(Bonilla) – As Amended Ver:April 6, 2015

Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No

SUMMARY:

This bill establishes, until July 1, 2020, a state grant program to incentivize increased adoption of open source educational resources at campuses of the California Community Colleges (CCC), the California State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC). Specifically, this bill:

1. Establishes the Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund to provide incentives and rewards for campus and faculty efforts to accelerate use of open educational resources in order to reduce students' cost and improve access to such materials.

2. Stipulates that moneys in the fund are to support faculty professional development, open educational resource curation activities, and technology support for faculty.

3. Authorizes campuses, upon adoption of a local resolution, to submit the resolution to their respective campus governing board for an initial grant to establish a strategy, as specified, for meeting the above goals. The strategy is to include three campus-determined benchmarks for each of the following three years.

4. Requires the respective segment offices to review, approve, and administer the grants.

5. Stipulates that after receiving the initial grant, the campuses shall receive bonus grants in each of the following three years if they meet the corresponding benchmarks for those years. The maximum amounts of the initial grant and bonus grants are unspecified.

6. Stipulates that the bonus grants are to be administered locally by the academic senate. in collaboration with the campus president, provost, or chief academic officer and the campus student body organization.

7. Requires the Chancellors of the CCC and the CSU and the UC President to report annually whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of open source educational resources and decreasing students' textbook costs.

FISCAL EFFECT:

At least several million dollars would be needed for a viable, multi-year grant program available to the over 150 campuses in three systems. Moreover, depending on the number of campuses in each segment seeking grants, each of the systemwide offices would need a half- or full-time position, at $70,000 to $140,000 (General Fund) annually to establish and oversee the grant program. To the extent the program makes more OER resources available to more students, significant savings in textbook costs could accrue to students.

COMMENTS:

1. Purpose. According to the author, in order to reduce costs for students and increase the rate of adoption of OER, faculty need support on their local campus to help learn about new technology available and to find the time to update their courses in order to use OER. The author states, "AB 798 provides the funding and incentive necessary to support professors when they choose to adopt OER. The College Textbook Affordability Act recognizes that this support will be different for every local campus depending on existing programs, makeup of student body and number of professors. Each local campus can create a plan that will specifically address the hurdles to OER on their local campus."

2. Background. According to the College Board, the average undergraduate student should budget between $1,200 and $1,300 for textbooks and supplies each year—roughly equivalent to annual CCC fees for a full-time student and 25% of tuition costs at CSU. A 2014 study by Public Interest Research Groups (Student PIRGs) found that 65% of students skipped buying or renting a textbook because it was too expensive, and 94% 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 course they were able to take.

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 enable faculty to customize learning materials to suit their course objectives and can provide students with a more flexible set of tools that can contribute to a richer learning experience.

3. Prior Legislation. SB 1052 (Steinberg)/Chapter 621, Statutes of 2012, established the California Open Education Resources Council, composed of three faculty members each from UC, CSU, and the CCC, to develop a list of 50 lower division courses across the three segments for which high-quality, affordable digital open source textbooks and related material shall be developed or acquired, to create and administer a review and approval process for open source materials, and to establish a competitive request-for-proposal 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. An appropriation of $5 million was provided for this effort, to be matched by nonstate funds. To date, only about $1 million has been matched.

In its most recent progress report, the Council reports that it has thus far selected the 50 courses, identified more than 150 appropriate OERs for this courses, developed a standardized peer review and approval process, and recruited faculty to conduct the reviews. As of March 2015, the Council reports that reviews are completed for 10 courses, involving 34 OER textbooks. The review process is being coordinated for 40 additional courses and 120 additional reviews.

Analysis Prepared by: Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081

Date of Hearing: April 21, 2015

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION

Jose Medina, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 798

Author:(Bonilla) – As Amended Ver:April 6, 2015

SUBJECT: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015

SUMMARY: Establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 and creates the Open Educational Resources (OER) Adoption Incentive Fund in the State Treasury. Specifically, this bill:

1. Establishes the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 with the goal of reducing costs for college students by encouraging faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality, OER; specifies that faculty development shall be a key component of this acceleration initiative; and, funding for this measure shall be provided in the annual Budget Act.

2. Creates the OER Adoption Incentive Fund in the State Treasury in order to provide incentives and reward campus and faculty efforts to accelerate adoption of OER for the purpose of reducing students’ costs and improving access to quality materials.

3. Defines the term "fund" to mean the OER Adoption Incentive Fund.

4. Defines "OER" to mean high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others.

5. Declares that "OER" includes, but is not limited to, a) full courses; b) course materials; c) modules; d) textbooks; e) streaming videos; f) tests g) software; and, h) any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

6. Specifies that monies in the fund shall be used by California Community Colleges (CCC), California State University (CSU), and University of California (UC) campuses to create and support faculty professional development (PD), OER curation activities, technology support for the faculty, or some combination thereof; and, specifies that monies in the fund shall not be used for direct compensation for faculty members who adopt OER.

7. Specifies that the local academic senate of a campus of the UC, CSU, or the CCC may adopt a local campus resolution, in collaboration with students and the administration, stating its intent to increase access to high quality OER; and, upon adoption of the resolution, the campus may submit the resolution to the respective segment office for an initial grant from the fund to establish a plan and strategy for accelerating adoption of high-quality OER on its campus, and developing the accompanying PD.

8. Requires the creation of the plan and strategy to be a collaboration between the campus academic senate and the recognized campus student body organization.

9. Requires each plan to include three benchmarks, focusing on reducing costs for students and increasing the adoption of high-quality OER; and, specifies each local campus shall determine its own benchmarks with oversight of the benchmarks provided when the grants are approved by the respective segment office.

10. Specifies that the strategy shall include continued access to a hard copy of materials through the local campus bookstore and ensure access to materials offline for students.

11. Requires the respective segment office to review and, if it meets the requirements, as specified, approve the resolution, and the initial grant shall be administered by the designated segment office in collaboration with the campus president, provost, or chief academic officer and the recognized campus student body organization.

12. Specifies that the designated segment office for the CCC may be the Success Center for the CCC or another appropriate office; and, that the designated segment office for the CSU may be the Academic Technology Services or another appropriate office.

13. Appropriates an unknown dollar amount for the initial grant; and, an unknown dollar amount for a bonus grant when a campuses reaches its first, second, and third benchmark in using OER on campus and decreasing textbook costs for students in the first, second, and third year of implementation.

14. Specifies that the bonus grants shall be used for faculty PD, OER curation activities, technology support for the faculty, or some combination thereof, administered by the local academic senate in collaboration with the campus president, provost, or chief academic officer and the recognized campus student body organization.

15. Requires a grant recipient to report to its respective segment office as to whether its benchmarks have been reached and it is eligible for bonus grants, as specified.

16. Requires the Chancellors of the CCC and CSU, and the President of the UC to report to the Legislature before July 1 each year as to whether the grants are increasing the rate of adoption of OER and decreasing textbook costs for college students.

17. Sunsets the provisions of this Act on January 1, 2021, unless a later enacted statute, that becomes operative on or before January 1, 2021 deletes or extends the dates.

EXISTING LAW:

1. Requires the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors, 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. Current 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 (Education Code Section 66406).

2. Creates the College Textbook Transparency Act, which, among other things, 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 (EC Section 66406.7).

3. 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).

FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown

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 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 course they were able to take.

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.

Purpose of this measure. According to the author, in order to reduce costs for students and increase the rate of adoption of OER, faculty need support on their local campus to help learn about new technology available and to find the time to update their courses in order to use OER. The author states, "AB 798 provides the funding and incentive necessary to support professors when they choose to adopt OER. The College Textbook Affordability Act recognizes that this support will be different for every local campus depending on existing programs, makeup of student body and number of professors. Each local campus can create a plan that will specifically address the hurdles to OER on their local campus."

REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:

Support

Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

California State Student Association

TechNet

Opposition

None on file.

Analysis Prepared by: Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916) 319-3960