Can Libraries
Save the MOOC?
As massive open
online courses move toward version 2.0, libraries are in a unique position to
guide and support the future of blended learning.
By Irene
Gashurov, Curtis Kendrick
11/06/14
MOOCs are
experiencing an existential crisis. They have demonstrated their capacity to
spread learning beyond traditional populations and to make learning both less
expensive and more efficient. On the other hand, MOOCs can suppress student
engagement, compromise the educational mission with the profit motive, and
raise hosts of unanswered questions about the integrity of data in the
unpoliced realm of the Internet. At their essence, MOOCs are about the flow of
information in digital form, not only confidential data about students but also
the intellectual property that is the university's stock in trade. And it is in
this management of information flows that libraries can make their greatest
contribution to the debate about the future of MOOCs, both in encouraging
student engagement and managing the dissemination of knowledge.
Libraries and
MOOCs
Besides being
centers of information, libraries are perfectly situated to deliver the
institutional support and physical infrastructure that can help students engage
with online courses. The library that delivers support services to a student
need not be the one affiliated with a course's originating institution. This
August, the New York Public Library embarked on one such venture with its first
foray into blended learning, combining MOOC technology with in-person help. In
the experiment, the library provided its space as a so-called learning hub for
a Coursera class. New Yorkers who signed up for the six-week class, "The
Camera Never Lies," met each week for 90 minutes at either of two NYPL branches
to discuss their work with each other and with a facilitator. The idea behind
the pilot is the hypothesis that the very high MOOC dropout rate might be
caused by a lack of pedagogical support and community. Coursera's program at
the NYPL is providing participants with the mentors and social experience they
need to keep them on the rolls. Each week the library tracked student
attendance, their level of engagement with the materials and the range of their
skills. "Among the goals of the experiment is to explore what MOOCs mean
for libraries," said Luke Swarthout, NYPL's director of adult education
services. "We're excited to see how this goes." NYPL is offering
another MOOC in poetry in the fall, which uses a community of enthusiasts
online to act as facilitators.
Libraries are
also taking the lead in addressing the impact of MOOCs on educational norms —
on privacy, content sharing, intellectual property and accreditation.
Librarians are especially well positioned to help universities navigate
copyright legislation. And by participating at the planning stages of MOOCs,
they can help ensure that reading materials are open source. In addition,
libraries are exploring ways to use MOOCs for professional development and
self-directed continuing education. Last fall, San Jose State University professor Michael Stephens taught
one of the first library MOOCs, The HyperLinked Library, and is exploring the
use of MOOCs in the core library courses at the university's library program.
This readiness to
experiment is particularly true in the developing world, where libraries are
emerging as the bridge to educational access. Though they have yet to introduce
MOOCs, programs like IREX's Global
Libraries project help libraries promote development through the use of
technology. In Moldova, libraries are teaching girls the basics of programming
and entrepreneurship. In Ukraine, librarians are providing technology to facilitate
interactions between young women and health experts. Libraries in these regions
can serve as learning centers where people can get access to education through
open educational resources. The idea, said Robert Cronin, director of IREX's Center for Collaborative Technology, is to help MOOCs work
better by reinforcing them with educational resources on the ground.
Most of the
institutions now offering MOOCs for credit have not called upon their libraries
to provide support for the planning and hosting of the courses. But librarians
have launched their own initiatives to help students successfully participate
in MOOCs. In 2014, the Georgia
Institute of Technology became the first university to offer a degree
program entirely based on MOOCs: the Online Master of Science in Computer
Science (OMSCS), with courses provided by Coursera. Students take proctored
exams to assess learning and have access to tutors, online office hours and
other support services. Tuition fees for program, which has an initial
enrollment of 400, are about 15 percent of what a traditional degree in the
field might cost, leading President Obama to cite the program as a future model of college
affordability.
Georgia Tech did
not initially seek to draw on the expertise of its librarians. When the
Institute began to discuss the potential of MOOCs in 2012, it gathered the
campus community under its Mini Innovation Hubs Project. "We were an
afterthought when the Institute began preparing for the OMSCS program,"
said librarian Lori Jean Ostapowicz Critz, head of the Faculty Engagement
Department. But she made a strong impression at the first meeting and was named
co-leader of the library services hub. That fall, when preparation began in
earnest, the OMSCS planning group asked Critz and Elizabeth Winter, Georgia
Tech's electronic resources librarian, to join and provide guidance on the
complexities of copyright, licensing of electronic resources and other
library-related services.
