When MOOC profs move (InsideHigherEd, 18 March 2014) – When faculty members move from one institution to the next, so do their courses, but after having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare those courses to a massive audience, are universities entitled to a share of the rights? The question has so far gone unanswered (though not undiscussed) even at some of the earliest entrants into the massive open online course market, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since MOOC providers have gotten out of the intellectual property rights debate by saying they will honor whatever policy their institutional partners have in place, it falls on the universities to settle the matter. Almost two years after Harvard and MIT jointly launched the MOOC provider edX, Sanjay E. Sarma, director of digital learning at MIT, said his institution has “figured it out.” “Faculty have always had certain expectations and rights, and we want to respect them,” Sarma said. “In other words, we don’t want any new policy to change any rights they have right now.” Instead, Sarma said, MIT will introduce an interpretation of its intellectual property policy—which appears to support both the faculty members’ and the institution’s position—in the coming months.

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US forces Coursera to ban students from Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria (Slashdot, 29 Jan 2014) –“Coursera is an online website that offers free courses from many of the world’s top universities. Now, all students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba will no longer be able to access Coursera . The official blog provides more info regarding the ban: ‘ Until now the interpretation of export control regulations as they relate to MOOCs has been unclear and Coursera has been operating under the interpretation that MOOCs would not be restricted. We recently received information that has led to the understanding that the services offered on Coursera are not in compliance with the law as it stands … United States export control regulations prohibit U.S. businesses, such as MOOC providers like Coursera, from offering services to users in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Under the law, certain aspects of Coursera’s course offerings are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions in sanctioned countries, with the exception of Syria.’”

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Law school’s online-hybrid degree program gets first-ever approval from ABA (ABA Journal, 19 Dec 2013) – In September, the American Bar Association Task Force on the Future of Legal Education called on law schools (PDF) to innovate and embrace technology as a means for educating future attorneys. William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., has answered the call. The ABA Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has approved the school’s plan to offer a hybrid curriculum, scheduled to begin in 2015, that includes both online and in-person classes. School officials met with the council two weeks ago to request a variance from ABA accreditation standards (PDF) which state that no more than one-third of an accredited law school’s curriculum can take place outside of the traditional classroom setting. The council announced yesterday(PDF) that it had granted the variance to William Mitchell’s proposed program, which provides for a 50-50 split between online and in-person class work. The program, which has a four-year duration, will be offered alongside the traditional full-time and part-time J.D. programs. In addition to web-based lectures, discussion boards and chat rooms for students and faculty, the program will emphasize skills training over lectures. Classroom sessions will include simulations as to what law students can expect when they’re practicing attorneys. The program will also include externships. Under the terms of the ABA’s variance, the school will be allowed to admit four entering classes of students under this program, and must limit individual class sizes to 96 students. The school must also provide detailed reports to the council, providing information such as applications and admissions, attrition, course evaluations and skills training. Barry Currier, the ABA’s managing director of accreditation and legal education, says they considered several factors before granting the variance, including the school’s 113-year history and experience with part-time law students. Currier said that the school’s application for a variance was highly detailed and very well-thought-out, and it was clear to him that the school was extremely dedicated to making the program work.

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