About ZTC

California Education Code Section 78050-78052  (Zero-Textbook-Cost Degree Grant Program) specifies that a community college district that receives Zero-Textbook-Cost (ZTC) funds shall “Ensure all open educational resources developed pursuant to this subdivision is added to the California Digital Open Source Library established in Section 66408.” The California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed) is the library referenced in the legislation and a portal for the addition of ZTC resources has been developed for use by the colleges. As COOL4Ed is a database that acts as a directory, resources will primarily be shared by providing information that directs users to the locations where the open educational resources (OER) are housed.

To meet the reporting requirements associated with the ZTC legislation and to ensure that COOL4Ed meets the needs of users trying to find OER, COOL4Ed has been modified to specifically meet the needs of the ZTC Degree Grant Program. Specific modifications include the following:

  • A field that identifies whether a resource was developed with ZTC funds.
  • Fields to track Course Identification Numbering System (C-ID designations), and Cal-GETC area.
  • Both a non-CTE (Other) and a CTE (CTE) discipline category have been created to ensure a discipline option for all resources and to determine when a new discipline should be added.
  • Limited options for the types of resources that can be included as a means of promoting accessibility.
  • Limited options for the types of licenses that can be selected in light of the requirements that resources by CC BY, if permissible.
  • A process for identifying adapted or remixed OER that do not warrant addition to COOL4Ed as a new resource, but should be identified as products developed with ZTC funds (see Adapted or Remixed OER for more information).
  • It has been designed to allow resources that were developed through cross-college collaborations to be submitted by one college and also identified as a product of the other participating colleges.
  • A process for sharing OER that are only available to faculty users (e.g., assessments).
  • All entries into COOL4Ed can be searched by the identified fields, any term in the resources description, and additional keywords added during the resource submission process.

In order to ensure the usefulness of COOL4Ed, modifications of existing OER (adaptations and remixes) should generally not be added to COOL4Ed. If more than 30–50% of the content (by volume or pedagogical impact) is new, restructured, or substantially changed, it is reasonable to consider it a new resource rather than a minor adaptation. OER that are adapted or remixed with minor changes should be reported to the OERI with an overview of the changes made. Such resources will be made available by the OERI and the OERI will report this information to the Chancellor’s Office.

In order to facilitate the addition of OER to the COOL4Ed database, the California Community Colleges were asked to create a specific email address that would be granted the permissions to submit resources. (Contact for help?) Prior to accessing the submission site, users should ensure they are prepared to provide all required information. The fields below are numbered to facilitate communication and some fields have been combined.

  1. Was this resource created with Zero-Textbook-Cost Degree Grant Program funds? Select “yes” if ZTC funds were used to support the OER being submitted.
  2. Course Discipline From the dropdown menu, select the discipline associated with the OER being submitted, not the ZTC pathway that the OER would be used for. The list of disciplines to select from as of XXXX can be found in Appendix Z. If an appropriate discipline is not available, select AAA if the missing discipline is not CTE or AAA-CTE if it is CTE. Either selection will allow you to manually enter the discipline. These data will be used to inform future discipline updates.
  3. C-ID and Cal-GETC Whether or not a course has any of these attributes is not a local determination. Please consult your Articulation Officer if you are uncertain of the status of a course for which you are submitting OER.
  4. Course Title Enter the title of the course and its associated identifier (e.g., COMM C1000, ART 101)
  5. Course Institution As noted earlier, collaboratively created resources can be “claimed” by all participating colleges.
  6. Resource Title and Resource Description Enter the title associated with the resource and provide 3 - 5 sentences to describe the resource. Keep in mind that elements of the description will be used when searching for resources. Your description should emphasize what is unique about the resource you are sharing.
  7. Resource Type; Resource Format; Resource Platform; Resource License

  1. Broad statement - this is what this ZTC form is about ….
  2. Why do colleges need to add OER to Cool4Ed?
  3. What is Cool4Ed?
    • Cool4Ed is a platform maintained by the California State University Chancellor’s Office. Cool4Ed is a referratory and not a repository. This means that Cool4Ed can refer users to materials, but those materials are not housed within Cool4Ed. This means that materials that you include in your submission to Cool4Ed should be accessed via a URL outside of Cool4Ed.
  4. If we do not house materials in Cool4Ed, where can we house them so that we have a URL to share?
  5. How do I access the ZTC upload process at Cool4Ed?
    • On the homepage of Cool4Ed, you will see a “ZTC Uploads” button. After clicking, you will be prompted to log in with your college’s unique email address that you submitted.
  6. What should be uploaded to Cool4Ed?
    • You should include any openly licensed materials that you developed with ZTC Degree Grant Program funds.
    • You do not need to upload information if you have adapted existing OER in a minor way.
    • After logging in, you will be prompted to answer questions about your instructional materials created with ZTC Degree Grant Program funding. Fields include:
      1. Course title
      2. C-ID of course
      3. Institution
      4. Year created
      5. Discipline
      6. CalGETC area (if applicable)
  7. What should I do if we created Canvas courses?
    • If you created courses housed in Canvas as part of your ZTC pathway work, please upload the course to Canvas Commons. Then you can select the resource link and include that in your upload form to enable other faculty to access the material(s).
  8. Should I include a hashtag in the Canvas Commons description to make it easier to discover the course?
    • Yes, including the hashtag #CCCZTC would help others to discover your materials in Canvas Commons.
  9. Will you review my college’s materials for accessibility?
    • All instructional materials that your college creates (e.g., OER) or assigns to students (from a commercial publisher) must be formatted for accessibility. The process of sharing information about your instructional materials via Cool4Ed does not change a college’s existing responsibilities under the law.
  10. We adapted select chapters in an existing OER textbook (e.g. an OpenStax book). We also created videos. How should we describe these?
    • The upload template provides you the option to describe a resource as a textbook, chapter, workbook, lab manual, videos, and more.
  11. We expect to update and change our materials as we use them. Can we upload multiple forms over time indicating different versions of the materials?
    • TBD (this is a Barbra and David question)
  12. If we have developed OER as part of a ZTC Pathway, but there is development of a specific OER that wasn’t funded with ZTC Degree Grant funds, do we still submit information about this OER material to Cool4Ed?
    • Yes, if the OER in question is part of a ZTC pathway, please submit the resource information so other colleges can find information necessary for a complete pathway. You will select “Not funded by ZTC Degree Grant Program funds” at the point of beginning the submission process.
  13. Should we include test banks and assessments?
    • Yes, you should include information about test banks and assessments. Of course, we want to provide a way for you to do this securely, as a safeguard to protect the assessment from being found by students, AI searches, etc.
    • If you select “assessment” as the type of resource, then you will be prompted to fill out a field “contact email to obtain assessment/test resource” and require an email address.
    • This field will give information regarding the requirement for searchers to contact the person who “created” the assessment tool and directs them to contact the author, verify that they are an instructor, and then receive the assessment/test material directly from the author
    • You do not need to make these materials publicly available. CA Ed Code 78052  states: “Testing and assessment materials posted online pursuant to this paragraph shall be safeguarded to maintain the integrity of those materials. This paragraph shall not be construed to prohibit faculty from providing sample test and assessment materials to students.”

  1. Can I search for all resources associated with a given pathway? For example, can I search for psychology and find all the resources that comprise a psychology pathway?
  2. Can I find in this database all the resources that colleges use to create ZTC pathways?
    1. While most of the resources that colleges use to create ZTC pathways are OER, not all of them are. Resources such as library databases might not be openly licensed and thus cannot be shared in this database.