Bill Text: CA AB798 | 2015-2016 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Passed) 2015-10-08 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 633, Statutes of 2015. [AB798 Detail]

Download: California-2015-AB798-Amended.html

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BILL NUMBER: AB 798	AMENDED
	BILL TEXT

	AMENDED IN SENATE  JULY 1, 2015
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  JUNE 2, 2015
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  APRIL 6, 2015

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Bonilla

                        FEBRUARY 26, 2015

   An act to amend Section 69999.6 of, and to add and repeal Part
40.1 (commencing with Section 67420) of Division 5 of Title 3 of, the
Education Code, relating to postsecondary education.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 798, as amended, Bonilla. College Textbook Affordability Act of
2015.
    (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 campus's
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.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Part 40.1 (commencing with Section 67420) is added to
Division 5 of Title 3 of the Education Code, to read:

      PART 40.1.  College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015


   67420.  This part shall be known, and may be cited, as the College
Textbook Affordability Act of 2015.
   67421.  The College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015 is hereby
established to reduce costs for college students by encouraging
faculty to accelerate the adoption of lower cost, high-quality, open
educational resources. Faculty development shall be a key component
of this acceleration initiative. This initiative shall use, in
addition to any other appropriate resources, those identified,
housed, produced, and otherwise found appropriate pursuant to the
California Open Education Resources Council established in Section
66409 and the California Digital Open Source Library established in
Section 66408.
   67422.  (a) The Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund
is hereby created in the State Treasury to provide incentives and
reward campus and faculty efforts to accelerate adoption of open
educational resources for the purpose of reducing students' costs and
improving access to quality materials.
   (b)  (1)    Moneys in the fund shall be used,
upon appropriation by the Legislature, by community college and
California State University campuses to create and support 
faculty   any, or some combination, of the following
purposes: 
    (A)     Faculty  professional 
development, open   development.  
   (B) Professional development for staff whose work relates to the
use of, or student access to, open educational resources. 
    (C)     Open  educational resource
curation  activities, faculty release time, technology
  activities.  
   (D) Curriculum modification. 
    (E)     Technology  support for
 faculty and   faculty,  students, 
or some combination of these uses. Moneys   and staff
whose work relates to the use of, or student access to, open
educational resources.
    (2)     Moneys  in the fund shall not
be used for direct compensation for faculty members who adopt open
educational  resources.   resources or for
purchasing new equipment. 
   (c) For the purposes of this act, a "community college campus" is
a community college campus site that has a local academic senate.
   67423.  (a) As used in this part, "fund" shall mean the Open
Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Fund.
   (b) As used in this part, "open educational resources" are
high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside
in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual
property license that permits their free use and repurposing by
others, and may include other resources that are legally available
and free of cost to students. "Open educational resources" include,
but are not limited to, full courses, course materials, modules,
textbooks, faculty-created content, streaming videos, tests,
software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to
support access to knowledge.
   67424.  (a) The local academic senate of a campus of the
California State University or the California Community Colleges may
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.
   (b) Upon adoption of the local campus resolution, the 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 open educational resources.  The California
Open Education Resources Council may provide a mod   el plan
to campuses. 
   (1) The creation of the plan shall be a collaboration between the
campus academic senate and the recognized campus student body
organization,  if the recognized campus student body organization
wants to be involved,  with input solicited by the campus
academic senate or the recognized campus student body organization
from the local campus bookstore. The California Open Education
Resources Council, established in Section 66409, may provide
expertise on available open educational resources and best practices
for the adoption of open educational resources for existing courses
to assist in the development of the plan.
   (2) The plan shall include continued access to  a hard
copy of  open educational resource materials selected by
faculty for use through  either the availability of a hard copy
at  the local campus bookstore  or access to materials on
PDF to print on campus, and shall ensure access to materials
offline for students.
   (3) (A) Each plan shall include three benchmarks, focusing on
reducing costs for students and increasing the adoption of
high-quality open educational resources consisting of a year one
goal, a year two goal, and a year three goal.
   (B) Each local campus shall determine its own benchmarks. 

   (4) Plans that utilize  
   (4) Each plan that demonstrates the following readiness
requirements shall be given priority for approval in accordance with
paragraph (2) of subdivision (c):  
   (A) A plan with concrete benchmarks that demonstrate quantifiable
outcomes to be achieved from its implementation, including, but not
limited to, an estimate of the range of money to be saved per student
from the plan's implementation. 
    (B)     A plan that utilizes 
available open educational resources, including, but not limited to,
California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed) and Multimedia
Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching 
(MERLOT) shall receive priority for receiving grants.  
(MERLOT).  
   (C) A plan that provides an estimate of the amount of money to be
saved per student from the plan's implementation.  
   (D) A plan that provides an estimate of the number of academic
departments expected to be involved in the plan's implementation.
 
   (E) A plan that describes how existing faculty development
programs will be enhanced by the plan's implementation.  
   (F) A plan that provides an assessment of the costs for students
to purchase course materials, as determined by the California Open
Education Resources Council. 
   (c) (1) Each local campus may submit the resolution and the plan
developed pursuant to subdivisions (a) and (b) to the California Open
Education Resources Council for an initial grant from the fund.
   (2) The California Open Education Resources Council shall review
the submitted  resolution and  plan and, if 
they meet   it meets  the requirements of this
part, approve  them.   it.  
   (3) Plans shall be submitted and approved in one of two rounds.
Plans submitted from October 2 to April 1, inclusive, of each
academic year shall be reviewed as round one plans. Plans submitted
from April 2 to October 1, inclusive, of a calendar year shall be
reviewed as round two plans.  
   (4) The California Open Education Resources Council shall approve
up to 100 plans per year. A plan not approved in a round may be
resubmitted by the campus for approval in future rounds, as
determined by the California Open Education Resources Council. Each
campus may only have one plan approved for purposes of the grant
program.  
   (5) Each plan approved by the California Open Education Resources
Council shall be submitted by the council to the appropriate segment
office. The segment office shall award grants to recipients in
accordance with this section.  
   (6) Administrative support may be provided to the council by
COOL4Ed to help the council carry out its duties in accordance with
this part.  
   (3) 
    (7)  An initial grant shall not exceed ten thousand
dollars ($10,000).
   (d) (1) Each year after a campus receives an initial grant, for up
to three years, the campus shall receive a bonus grant from the fund
for meeting established performance benchmarks for accelerating
usage of open educational resources in courses, according to the
following schedule:
   (A) A campus shall receive a bonus grant of up to ten thousand
dollars ($10,000) for reaching its first benchmark in using open
educational resources on campus and decreasing textbook costs for
students in the first year of implementation.
   (B) A campus shall receive a bonus grant of up to ten thousand
dollars ($10,000) for reaching its second benchmark in using open
educational resources on campus and decreasing textbook costs for
students in the second year of implementation.
   (C) A campus shall receive a bonus grant of up to ten thousand
dollars ($10,000) for reaching its third benchmark in using open
educational resources on campus and decreasing textbook costs for
students in the third year of implementation. For bonus grants issued
for reaching the third benchmark, if applications exceed the amount
of available grant funds, priority shall be given by the California
Open Education Resources Council to plans submitted pursuant to
subdivision (c) that achieve cost savings for students through
collaborations with one or more campuses. These collaborations may
form within a segment, or across different segments. 
   (2) If money is available in the Open Educational Resources
Adoption Incentive Fund after the first bonus grants for reaching the
third benchmark pursuant to subparagraph (C) of paragraph (1) are
awarded, additional bonus grants shall be made available to
recipients, as determined by the segment offices, in consultation
with the California Open Education Resources Council, until there is
no money left in the fund.  
   (2) 
    (3)  The bonus grants shall be used for faculty
  any, or some combination, of the following  
purposes: 
    (A)     Faculty  professional 
development, open   development.  
   (B) Professional development of staff whose work relates to the
use of, or student access to, open educational resources. 
    (C)     Open  educational resource
curation  activities, technology   activities.
 
   (D) Curriculum modification. 
    (E)     Technology  support for
 faculty and  faculty,  students, 
faculty release time, or some combination of these uses. 
 and staff whose work relates to the use of, or student access
to, open educational resources. 
   (e) A grant recipient shall report to the California Open
Education Resources Council as to whether its benchmarks have been
reached  and   to determine whether  it is
eligible for bonus grants pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision
(d). This report shall include an explanation of how the recipient
used available open educational resources, including, but not limited
to, COOL4Ed and MERLOT, to accomplish its goals pursuant to this
part more efficiently.
   (f) The  California Open Education Resources Council
  Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates 
shall report to the Legislature before July 1 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.
   (g) A local academic senate of a campus of the California State
University or the California Community Colleges may commence its
application by adopting a local campus resolution as of January 1,
2016, pursuant to subdivision (a). The California Open Education
Resources Council shall be ready to review grant applications on or
before March 1, 2016.
   67425.  This part shall become inoperative on July 1, 2020, and,
as of January 1, 2021, is repealed, unless a later enacted statute,
that becomes operative on or before January 1, 2021, deletes or
extends the dates on which it becomes inoperative and is repealed.
  SEC. 2.  Section 69999.6 of the Education Code is amended to read:
   69999.6.  (a) In enacting this article, it is the intent of the
Legislature to accomplish all of the following:
   (1) Provide explicit authority to the board to continue to
administer accounts for, and make awards to, persons who qualified
for awards under the provisions of the Governor's Scholarship
Programs as those provisions existed on January 1, 2003, prior to the
repeal of former Article 20 (commencing with Section 69995).
   (2) Provide for the management and disbursement of funds
previously set aside for the scholarship programs authorized by
former Article 20 (commencing with Section 69995).
   (3) Provide a guarantee should additional funds be needed to cover
awards authorized and made pursuant to former Article 20 (commencing
with Section 69995).
   (b) The board may manage and disburse the funds previously set
aside for the scholarship programs authorized by former Article 20
(commencing with Section 69995).
   (c) If a person has earned an award under the Governor's
Scholarship Programs on or before January 1, 2003, but has not
claimed the award on or before June 30, 2004, he or she still may
claim the award by a date that is five years from the first June 30
that fell after he or she took the qualifying test. An award shall
not be made by the board after that date.
   (d) The board shall negotiate with the current manager of the
Governor's Scholarship Programs and execute an amended or new
management and funding agreement, before January 1, 2013, which shall
include, but not be limited to, all of the following:
   (1) Terms providing for the return to the General Fund by no later
than January 1, 2013, of moneys appropriated to the Governor's
Scholarship Programs that are not anticipated to be needed to make
awards pursuant to paragraphs (1) and (2) of subdivision (a).
   (2) Provisions that authorize the board to pay agreed-upon early
withdrawal penalties or fees.
   (3) Terms that extend to the final date upon which the board may
withdraw funds for a person who earned an award under the Governor's
Scholarship Programs.
   (e) (1) If funds retained in the Golden State Scholarshare Trust
after January 1, 2013, are insufficient to cover the remaining
withdrawal requests, it is the intent of the Legislature to
appropriate the necessary funds to the Golden State Scholarshare
Trust for the purpose of funding individual beneficiary accounts.
   (2) The board shall notify the Department of Finance and the
Legislature no later than 10 working days after determining that a
shortfall in available funding described in paragraph (1) will occur.

   (f) (1) Of the funds transferred to the General Fund pursuant to
paragraph (1) of subdivision (d), five million dollars ($5,000,000)
is hereby appropriated to the Chancellor of the California State
University, without regard to fiscal years, to fund the establishment
and administration of the California Open Education Resources
Council and the California Digital Open Source Library, and the
development or acquisition of open education resources, or any
combination thereof, pursuant to legislation enacted in the 2011-12
Regular Session of the Legislature, or for the funding of grants and
administrative costs pursuant to the College Textbook Affordability
Act of 2015 (Part 40.1 (commencing with Section 67420) of Division
5). The chancellor may provide reimbursement to the California
Community Colleges and the University of California for costs those
segments, or their representatives, incur in association with the
activities described in this paragraph.
   (2) (A) Moneys, or a portion of moneys, appropriated pursuant to
paragraph (1) shall not be encumbered unless at least 100 percent of
that amount encumbered is matched by private funds. Moneys
appropriated pursuant to paragraph (1) that are not matched by
private funds shall revert to the Golden State Scholarshare Trust for
purposes of the Governor's Scholarship Programs.
   (B) Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), moneys appropriated for
purposes of the College Textbook Affordability Act  of 2015 
shall not be required to be matched by private funds. 
   (C) Twenty-five percent of each grant awarded to a campus shall be
matched by the campus and used by the campus to ensure
administrative and faculty support of the campus' plan that was
submitted and approved in accordance with Section 67424.  
   (D) Money provided to a member of the California Open Education
Resources Council for purposes of the council carrying out its duties
in accordance with this part shall not exceed three thousand dollars
($3,000) total and shall be provided as a stipend. No additional
money shall be provided for travel purposes. 
   (g) The board may adopt rules and regulations for the
implementation of this article.