Educational telecommunications -- Responsibilities of the Utah Board of Higher Education, the State Board of Education, the University of Utah, KUED - TV, KUER - FM, and UETN related to public broadcasting and telecommunication for education and government

(1) Subject to applicable rules of the Federal Communications Commission and Section 53H-4-213.4, the Utah Board of Higher Education, the State Board of Education, the University of Utah, KUED - TV, KUER - FM, and UETN shall: (a) coordinate statewide services of public radio and television; (b) develop, maintain, and operate statewide distribution systems for KUED - TV, KUER - FM, and KUEN, the statewide distance learning service, the educational data network, connections to the Internet, and other telecommunications services appropriate for providing video, audio, and data telecommunication services in support of public and higher education, state government, and public libraries; (c) support the delivery of these services to as many communities as may be economically and technically feasible and lawfully permissible under the various operating licenses; (d) cooperate with state and local governmental and educational agencies and provide leadership and consulting service for telecommunication for education; (e) represent the state with privately owned telecommunications systems to gain access to the state's networks for the delivery of programs and services sponsored or produced by public and higher education; (f) acquire, produce, coordinate, and distribute a variety of programs and services of an educational, cultural, informative, and entertaining nature designed to promote the public interest and welfare of the state; (g) coordinate with the state system of higher education to acquire, produce, and distribute broadcast and nonbroadcast college credit telecourses, teleconferences, and other instructional and training services; (h) coordinate with school districts and public schools to acquire, produce, and distribute broadcast and nonbroadcast telecourses, teleconferences, and other instructional and training services to the public schools; (i) coordinate the development of a clearing house for the materials, courses, publications, media, software, and other applicable information related to the items addressed in Subsections (1)(g) and (h); (j) coordinate the provision of the following services to public schools: (i) broadcast, during school hours, of educational and administrative programs recommended by the State Board of Education; (ii) digitization of programs for broadcast purposes; and (iii) program previewing; (k) share responsibility for instructional television awareness and utilization; and (l) provide teleconference and training services for state and local governmental agencies. (2) This section neither regulates nor restricts a privately owned company in the distribution or dissemination of education programs.