(a) Each campus of the California Community Colleges and the California State University shall, and each campus of the University of California is requested to, do both of the following:

(1) (A) Clearly highlight, by means that may include a symbol or logo in a conspicuous place on the online campus course schedule, the courses that exclusively use digital course materials that are free of charge to students and may have a low-cost option for print versions.

(B) The course materials described in subparagraph (A) may include open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials. Each campus of the California State University, each participating campus of the University of California, and each community college district shall ensure that these materials comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 12101 et seq.) and the federal Copyright Act of 1976 (Public Law 94-553).

(2) Clearly communicate to students that the course materials used for the courses identified pursuant to paragraph (1) are free of charge and therefore not required to be purchased.

(b) For purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:

(1) “Course schedule” is a collection of available classes, course sections, or both, published electronically, before the start of an academic term.

(2) “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, 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.

(c) This section shall become operative on January 1, 2018.

(Added by Stats. 2016, Ch. 343, Sec. 1. (SB 1359) Effective January 1, 2017. Section operative January 1, 2018, by its own provisions.)