General Assembly Substitute Bill No. 6117
January Session, 2015 *_____HB06117HED___031315____*
General Assembly
Substitute Bill No. 6117
January Session, 2015
*_____HB06117HED___031315____*
AN ACT CONCERNING THE USE OF DIGITAL OPEN-SOURCE TEXTBOOKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
Section 1. (NEW) (Effective July 1, 2015) (a) Not later than September 1, 2015, the Board of Regents for Higher Education, in collaboration with the Board of Trustees for The University of Connecticut and the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, shall establish an open-source textbook consortium of not less than five institutions of higher education, including, but not limited to, The University of Connecticut, one state university, one regional community-technical college, Charter Oak State College and one independent institution of higher education. The consortium shall annually (1) assess the use of high-quality and affordable digital open-source textbooks and related materials to lower the cost of higher education to students, (2) promote the use of and access to open-source textbooks, and (3) collaborate for the purposes of developing and acquiring open-source textbooks. For purposes of this section, "open-source textbooks" means a college-level textbook licensed under an open copyright license and made available on an Internet web site to be freely used by students, faculty and members of the public.
(b) Not later than January 1, 2016, and annually thereafter, the consortium of public institutions of higher education shall submit a report, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a of the general statutes, to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to higher education regarding its duties described in subsection (a) of this section.
This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following sections:
Section 1 July 1, 2015 New section
This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following sections:
Section 1
July 1, 2015
New section
Statement of Legislative Commissioners:
In Subsec (a), "2016" was changed to "2015" for accuracy.
HED Joint Favorable Subst. -LCO
HED
Joint Favorable Subst. -LCO