California Senator Darrell Steinberg is proposing a bill today that will allocate $25 million to create open educational resources in the form of free online textbooks that college instructors can use or edit as they see fit. The bill establishes the online California Digital Open Source Library, which will house the 50 most commonly used books required for students in lower-division courses.
California follows Washington state, which developed a plan for an Open Course Library earlier this year. The move to OER is timely given rising college tuition costs.