Supporting MOOC development: Service models, best practices, and the experience at UBC

With the New York Times declaring 2012 the “year of the MOOC,” it is no surprise that MOOCs (or massive open online courses) are generating a great deal of interest within the higher education community. As a growing number of post-secondary institutions seek to launch their own MOOCs, Copyright Leads and Officers (CLOs) are increasingly being called upon to provide copyright support to MOOC developers. The University of British Columbia launched four MOOCs in 2013 and is in the process of developing more. The UBC copyright office was directly involved in supporting the successful launch of the MOOCs, developing support systems and acting as an educator and advisor to faculty and staff about their rights within Canadian copyright law and fair dealing. EdX’ recent partnership with Elsevier and Coursera’s partnership with multiple publishers, including Wiley and Sage, indicate that the next step for MOOCs involves access to a wider range of academic resources. However, the state of licensed resources in academic libraries does not currently accommodate the type of use envisioned by MOOCs, creating a barrier to their development within a university setting.