Fall 2012; Resolution Number: 11.01
Whereas, The ASCCC strongly supports and continues to engage in a multitude of student success efforts and initiatives;
Whereas, Research has shown that access to and use of textbooks and ancillary materials are correlated with successful course completion by students, and students postpone or fail to purchase textbooks due to escalating textbook prices and other educational costs, which could impact their success and course completion;
Whereas, A growing number of digital Open Educational Resources (OER) now exist, including textbooks and instructional materials that are readily available to educators at no cost, which, if deemed appropriate and assigned by faculty, would provide significant savings to our students; and
Whereas, Recent legislation requires the participation of community college faculty with other higher education faculty to create a library of OER materials for use in California;
Resolved, That the ASCCC support the appropriately expanded use of Open Educational Resources (OER) resources and work with our higher education partners to develop policies for the coordination, storage, retrieval, use, and updating of “creative commons” –licensed1 materials; and
Resolved, That the ASCCC endorse the convening of appropriate stakeholders, including faculty from our intersegmental partners for implementation of SB 1052 and 1053 (Steinberg, 2012), to develop appropriate rules and guidelines for accessing Open Educational Resources materials for faculty in a broad range of formats that encourage their wide-spread availability for adoption and use.