Libraries, MOOCs And the State of Online Education Judith Thomas Director, Arts and Media Services University of Virginia Library

2 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES INTENSE EXPERIMENTATION: Residential learning with an online component (e.g. flipped classrooms) Credential awarding courses Online-only programs Free global outreach (MOOCS)

3 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 1. Provide information resources; 2. Consult with faculty on finding and using resources; 3. Support the production of course content and the use of online learning tools; 4. Support student learning through targeted interactions; 5. Collect and preserve our institutional history.

4 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 1. PROVIDE INFORMATION RESOURCES STRENGTH: This is what we do! WEAKNESS: Current licenses are too restrictive; open access scholarship is still limited; collections budgets are not aligned with potential new costs. Problems blending residential and global students: FERPA and other complications.

5 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 1. PROVIDE INFORMATION RESOURCES OPPORTUNITIES: Promote new era of scholarly communication; strengthen fair use through selective application; negotiate licenses more favorable to online education. THREAT: Drain of collection budgets, including for low- quality textbooks (forecasted for MOOCs).

6 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 2. CONSULT WITH FACULTY ON FINDING AND USING RESOURCES STRENGTHS: Strongly aligned with our mission. WEAKNESSES: Librarians unfamiliar with non-traditional materials, e.g. interactive modules, simulations, animations, GIS-based resources, video, open source content; unfamiliar with how to deploy these materials effectively.

7 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 2. CONSULT WITH FACULTY ON FINDING AND USING RESOURCES OPPORTUNITIES: Expand knowledge about new forms of information; receive recognition for this new knowledge; participate in high-profile institutional endeavor; improve residential courses. THREATS: Heavier workloads for overburdened librarians; chronic support problems as a result of relying on immature technologies, frequent format changes, unreliable providers.

8 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 3. SUPPORT THE PRODUCTION OF COURSE CONTENT AND THE USE OF ONLINE LEARNING TOOLS STRENGTHS: Media/Maker/Production labs already engaged in support of innovative teaching and learning. WEAKNESSES: Uneven in-house expertise in instructional design, instructional technology, production technologies and spaces.

9 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 3. SUPPORT THE PRODUCTION OF COURSE CONTENT AND THE USE OF ONLINE LEARNING TOOLS OPPORTUNITIES: Develop capacity in a growing area; attract funding from other areas of the University; provide professional development opportunities to staff. THREATS: Inadequate and uncertain resourcing could derail early efforts to create “maker spaces.”

10 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 4. SUPPORT STUDENT LEARNING THROUGH TARGETED INTERACTIONS. STRENGTHS: Strongly aligned with our mission. WEAKNESSES: Providing research and critical thinking training to a class of 50 is one thing, to a class of 50,000, another! Inadequate resources to scale learning support.

11 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 4. SUPPORT STUDENT LEARNING THROUGH TARGETED INTERACTIONS. OPPORTUNITIES: Strengthen support for residential courses through experimentation with online methods, high profile involvement in priority initiative; identification of librarians with student success. THREATS: Inability to scale could lead to burnout, unimpressive outcomes.

12 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 5. COLLECT AND PRESERVE INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY STRENGTHS: Strongly aligned with our mission to collect and preserve; star faculty often create MOOCs; significant investment means high production values. WEAKNESSES: Significant demands on infrastructure, particularly in terms of storage and technical services; often impossible to collect all course products (e.g. by terms of Coursera license).

13 POSSIBLE LIBRARY ROLES 5. COLLECT AND PRESERVE INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OPPORTUNITIES: Capture significant moment in history of higher ed; allow continued access for residential students; develop stronger profile for institutional repository; collaborate with others on shared solutions. THREATS: Significant processing and storage demands (est. 2 TB per course, highly variable) could crowd out other preservation priorities.

14 University of Virginia Library is… Investigating our institutional commitment to and plans for MOOCs; Embedding librarians in two new MOOCs; Providing subject librarian expertise; Creating a preservation and access plan for the videos; Consulting on the development of learning objects and instructional design, esp. on joint MOOC/residential courses; Developing our institutional repository and promoting other open access solutions.

15 Every library should: Research and share “reports” from the field, including information on strategies and tools; Engage general counsel, subject librarians and digital staff on all five areas of service; Become involved in institutional discussions of online learning, at all levels of the organization: is this an institutional priority?; Treat all MOOC support efforts as R&D; don’t be afraid of failure; be prepared to report out as part of ongoing library conversation on this phenomenon.