Lower College Textbook Costs

Section 1. Short title. This act shall be known and may be cited as the "college textbook affordability act".

§ 2. The education law is amended by adding a new article 15-D to read as follows:

ARTICLE 15-D

COLLEGE TEXTBOOK AFFORDABILITY ACT Section 730. Legislative intent.

731. New York state open education resources council.

732. New York state open source digital library.

733. Open educational resources adoption incentive program.

734. Open educational resources adoption incentive program

campus plan.

§ 730. Legislative intent. The college textbook affordability act is hereby enacted 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 New York state open education resources council established in section seven hundred thirty-one of this article and the New York state digital open source library, established in section seven hundred thirty-two of this article.

§ 731. New York state open education resources council. 1. The New York state open education resources council is hereby established in the

EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets

[ ] is old law to be omitted.

LBD06470-01-9

A. 2961 2

state university of New York. The council shall be composed of faculty leaders from state university of New York institutions and community colleges.

2. The council shall have nine members: five members shall be faculty of the state university of New York, selected by the University Faculty Senate, and four members shall be community college faculty, selected by the Faculty Council of Community Colleges. Appointments to the council shall be made no later than ninety days after the effective date of this article.

3. The council shall be responsible for accomplishing all of the following:

(a)(i) development of a list of fifty strategically selected courses for which high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials shall be developed or acquired pursuant to this section.

(ii) in developing the course list pursuant to this paragraph, the council shall consider the extent to which the selected courses:

(A) are among the most highly enrolled courses within state university of New York institutions and at community colleges;

(B) are likely to generate significant savings in textbook costs for students;

(C) demonstrate relative consistency in content across existing textbook products;

(D) provide opportunities for faculty to augment the open textbook with free faculty-authored materials or other free open education materials from existing digital libraries and collections;

(E) are conducive to discipline-based pedagogies that can be enhanced with digital resources and interactivity to support improved student learning success.

(b) creation and administration of a standardized, rigorous review and approval process for open source textbooks and related materials developed or acquired pursuant to this section. This process shall ensure that all open source textbooks and related materials developed or acquired pursuant to this section have been tested and validated as having met accessibility requirements for students with disabilities before approval and release. The textbooks and other materials shall include documentation for students with disabilities that describes available accessibility features.

(c) promotion of strategies for production, access, and use of open source materials.

(d) regularly soliciting and considering, from student associations advice and guidance on open source education textbooks and related materials.

4. The council shall establish a competitive request for proposal process in which faculty members, publishers, and other interested parties may apply for funds to produce the fifty high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials pursuant to this section. Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to limit or restrict the council from developing or acquiring, either for a charge or for free, existing high-quality digital open source textbooks and related materials that otherwise meet the specifications of this section.

5. The council shall submit a report to the legislature and the governor on the progress of the implementation of this section no later than six months after the effective date of this article, and submit a final report by January first, two thousand twenty-two.

A. 2961 3

6. The textbooks and other materials produced pursuant to this section shall comply with all of the following requirements:

(a) the textbooks and other materials are placed under a creative commons attribution license that allows others to use, distribute, and create derivative works based upon the digital material while still allowing the authors or creators to receive credit for their efforts.

(b) the textbooks and other materials are modular in order to allow easy customization, and are encoded in an extensible markup language (XML) format, or other appropriate successor format, and are designed and delivered to achieve interoperability enabling the materials to be made available reliably and successfully on the widest possible range of platforms, such as the internet, tablets, smartphones, print, or other platforms.

(c) the textbooks and other materials conform to the most current, ratified standards under Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. Sec. 794d), as amended, and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines adopted by the World Wide Web Consortium for accessibility. The textbooks and other materials shall be furnished to colleges and universities for distribution to students with print disabilities.

(d) the textbooks and other materials are submitted to, and housed within, the New York state open source digital library.

§ 732. New York state open source digital library. 1. The New York state open source digital library is hereby established, and shall be administered by the state university of New York, in coordination with the state's community colleges, 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.

2. All material in the New York state open source digital library shall bear a creative commons attribution license that allows others to use, distribute, and create derivative works based upon the digital material while still allowing the authors or creators of the material to receive credit for their efforts.

3. Nothing in this section shall be construed to mandate faculty use of any particular textbook or related materials.

§ 733. Open educational resources adoption incentive program. 1. The state university of New York shall hereby establish an open educational resources adoption incentive program. With moneys appropriated therefor, the program shall further the following purposes:

(a) faculty professional development, which shall include learning about the New York state open source digital library established pursuant to section seven hundred thirty-two of this article. Faculty who participate in this professional development shall be reimbursed in accordance with their campus' approved plan established pursuant to section seven hundred thirty-four of this article.

(b) professional development for staff whose work supports providing students with open educational resources.

(c) open educational resource curation activities. All new open educational resources developed and available that are adopted as course material pursuant to this program shall be added to the New York state open source digital library.

(d) curriculum modification and requisite release time for faculty in accordance with a campus' approved plan pursuant to section seven hundred thirty-four of this article related to the adoption of open educational resources as course materials.

A. 2961 4

(e) technology support for faculty, students, and staff whose work furthers the goals specified in a campus' approved plan pursuant to section seven hundred thirty-four of this article.

2. Moneys appropriated for the program shall not be used for direct compensation for faculty members who adopt open educational resources, except as provided to compensate for professional development pursuant to paragraph (a) of subdivision one of this section, or for purchasing new equipment.

3. For the purposes of this article, "open educational resources" means high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a creative commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available 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.

§ 734. Open educational resources adoption incentive program campus plan. 1. In order to participate in the open educational resources adoption incentive program, the local faculty senate of a campus of the state university of New York or of a community college shall:

(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 in course sections for which open educational resources are to be adopted to accomplish cost savings for students; and

(b) 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 open educational resources.

2. (a) The plan approved pursuant to subdivision one of this section may detail technological or staff support to increase the adoption of open educational resources. The plan shall describe how the faculty will learn about the New York state open source digital library and other existing open educational resources.

(b) The plan shall include the number of academic departments expected to be involved in the plan's implementation, the number of course sections in which open educational resources will be adopted, the percentage of cost savings for students anticipated on account of the adoption of open educational resources for each of these course sections, the ways existing faculty development programs will be enhanced by the plan's implementation, and the mechanisms that will be used to distribute adopted open educational resources to students.

(c) At their discretion, faculty may choose, for courses that are to adopt open educational resources under the plan, appropriate resources for any of the fifty strategically selected courses identified by the New York state open education resources council pursuant to subparagraph (i) of paragraph (a) of subdivision three of section seven hundred thirty-one of this article. Other open educational resources may also be used.

(d) The plan shall describe how the campus will provide access to open educational resource materials for students, including how the campus will make hard copies of these materials available for students who lack access to these materials off campus and make it possible for students with such access to print hard copies.

A. 2961 5

(e) The plan shall identify the amount of the grant requested. The amount of the grant requested shall be equal to, or less than, the number of course sections in which both open educational resources will be adopted and cost savings for the course section will be greater than thirty percent, multiplied by one thousand dollars. The amount requested shall not be greater than fifty thousand dollars. A plan shall commit to achieving greater than thirty percent cost savings in at least ten course sections.

(f) The plan shall include the percentage of cost savings for each course section calculated as follows: the percentage of cost savings shall be the estimated decrease in the costs of books and supplies for a course section in the current term resulting from the adoption of open educational resources for that course section, divided by the costs of books and supplies for that course section in the immediately preceding academic term.

3. The New York state open education resources council 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.

4. (a) The local faculty senate of a campus of the state university of New York or the community colleges may submit the resolution and the plan developed pursuant to this section to the New York state open education resources council as its application for an initial grant no later than June thirtieth, two thousand twenty.