Bill > S675

This bill establishes the Massachusetts Open Source Digital Library, administered by the department of higher education and coordinated with the Massachusetts Open Education Resources Council and the state's public higher education system, to provide students, faculty, and staff with free or low-cost access to digital course materials. The bill also creates the Massachusetts Open Education Resources Council, comprised of faculty leaders from the University of Massachusetts, state universities, and community colleges, along with a student representative, to identify 50 lower-division courses for which high-quality, affordable, digital open-source textbooks and related materials will be developed or acquired. These materials must be licensed under a creative commons attribution license, allowing for reuse and modification while crediting the original authors, and must be modular, encoded in a format like Extensible Markup Language (XML) for broad platform compatibility, and meet accessibility standards for students with disabilities, including those with print disabilities. The council will oversee a review and approval process for these materials and promote their production, access, and use through a competitive grant process.