Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Libraries, MOOCs and Online Learning Seminar 19 March 2014

The Australian Library and Information Association, the Council for Australian University Librarians, OCLC and the State Library of Queensland presented a one-day seminar on Libraries, MOOCs and Online Learning on 19 March 2014

A summary of presentations follows

Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, (Academic), Australian National University emphasised the value of MOOCs as part of a change to reach new audiences, particularly those without easy access to education.  MOOCS assist in overcoming barriers, eg not enough physics teachers out there.  At ANU the Sanskrit MOOC demonstrates using a language other than English to engage with international communities. Over half of the students registered are in India.  Many students enrol from around the world - 88 countries.  Other major reasons for MOOCS are to enable individuals to enjoy education and to push the current boundaries. She characterised librarians as open access warriors and noted that our university content is content for everyone. She noted the need copyright reform to enable us to educate everyone. Librarians are taking a positive role and need to take the next step to remind the world that information should flow more freely and that it is a gift to the world.


Professor Beverley Oliver, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Deakin University, described the policy and practice settings for Deakin’s initiatives. Deakin seeks to offer a brilliant education where you are and where you want to go.  She emphasised that we live in a digital world. Key issues include experience and trust. Innovators are heading to engaging the students rather than focusing on the technology. Deakin Connect was established to test assessment and educational models and business model.  Students are asked to make learning evidence.  Deakin uses badges - students gave them to each other. The university seeks to learn from the innovation and rewrite the education experience.  Delightfully she called for innovation  for learning at the digital frontier to more effective, efficient, accessible, engaging learning and rewire the mothership (the university).

Professor Margaret Sheil, Provost and Professor of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, placed Elearning within university strategy. The intention is to explore online learning at scale, transforming on campus service and producing post graduate courses.  Coursera has led to significant engagement, with much learnt. The University looks to go wholly online for graduate programs. She noted that learners are more mature. The University is responding to a changing student cohort. She advocated that "We are in there" to learn with the result that the university can respond appropriately.

Dr Phillip Long, Executive Director of Innovation and Analytics, University of Queensland, gave a very insightful analysis of MOOVD and their use with detailed analysis of metrics. He began by commenting on what the academy is learning. The origin of books in Bologna was used in the classroom as a part of peer learning. Over more recent years there has been integration of media and introduction of the “Flipped classroom”, and new joint teaching moving from 200 to 600 students with multiple teachers.  Developments have proved can do active learning at scale. MOOCs need to be a whole of institution initiative not just technology enabled teaching, edX expands reach, provides for collaborative innovation with top research institutions, explore best practice and creates improved use of technology.  UQ are interested in improving on campus experience, expanding access to quality education and advancing research. New models include Berkeley which delivers of SPOC (small private online learning) of high quality. MITx courses used to supplement their class experience. 55% of students much prefer online assessment. The results of MOOCs are a reduced number of students flagged for falling behind. A major factor in MOOC development ahs been research into how long videos should be. A sweet spot is 6-9 minutes. Lecturer  need to know more about how to should present slides. Research shows Khan style slides more effective and preferred.

He provided tantalising other findings - level of maths skills correlates with achievement in MOOCs as does working offline with so does and time spent on homework, although too much time on homework is correlated negatively with achievement.

Completion rates need to be considered in a different frame – for example categorising as auditors, behind, on track, out - some switch across, volatile and changing streams. Compared to first 2-3 weeks of traditional university classes. motivation matters more in MOOCs.

UQ first 4 MOOCs are bio imaging, hyper sonics, the sciences of everyday thinking, tropic.

Demographics were analysed gender, education, age.  UQ is interested in data that can be collected from students - use clickstream. data - tincan or experience api, that can combine with open badges.  Open credentials - facts, skills competency, mastery. Spaced learning over time is the most successful (rather than cramming).

Average 17 minutes on feedback in the course studied.

UQ learning online has demonstrated that early adopters very different from mainstream academics, academic subcultures are deeply held, with collaboration meaning different things to different disciplines. He commented that the pact of MOOCs was more aligned with tech start ups than academia, and breaking out of the semester timeline frame is difficult.

The need for Open access resources causes some problems e.g. image from researcher which had been published in an Elsevier publication could not be used.

Copyright – he noted that to date edX has not has to address a single DMCA  take down notice.

Merliee Proffit, Senior Program Officer, OCLC Research, USA reported on detailed research OCLC has conducted into library involvement in MOOCs.  Many have been involved in online education for decades.  experience had included online for extension courses e.g. to remote students and public lecture put online.

The main involvement of libraries is around copyright - several hundred hours for clearance per MOOC, with opportunities to forge now collaborations with faculty. Projects helped faculty to see librarians in new ways.

Libraries are also getting engaged with how to put research skills into MOOCs. Are there opportunities to improve library instruction?  Interesting opportunity for public libraries - stand to provide a significant role e.g. through offering broadband and resources.

At a recent seminar in Philadelphia themes were copyright, production and pedagogy, resources.

Libraries have expressed concerns about the weariness of the unfunded mandate, need for scaling up information on copyright for faculty, that only a handful of institutions doing analysis on use of resources and a common question is where is the open in MOOC?

MOOCs have not resulted in more open access resources.

Beyond MOOCs challenges include working with educational technology staff (high turnover), timeframe for planning online courses, improved online learning, extending to learning.

Beyond MOOCs - Penn State World Campus Program example, full online courses, access to library including print. World campus library treated as its own library, Promise to bring their campus library to all students.

Underlying trend in shifting of payment for university education to states rather than individuals and families.

Robert Gerrity, University Librarian, University of Queensland reported on the CAUL MOOC survey. 68 per cent of respondent libraries are participating in MOOCs.  Library are involved in supporting - 78 per cent yes. Major roles copyright clearance, identification of owners, license negotiation, delivery if information literacy content.

Positions involved - copyright officer. Liaison librarians, University Librarian, directors of service areas etc. full results clatac.wordpress.com.  Areas to follow up perhaps registry, deeper survey - resources used e.g. hours and compare with other countries e.g. North America.

Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian (Chief Scholarly, Information Officer), Australian National University – slides are online at http://www.slideshare.net/roxannemissingham/moocs-missingham - focused on the need for libraries to rethink their roles – to “shake, rattle and roll” – open up collections, change scholarly publishing, create new partnerships and . 

Dr Cathy Stone, Open Universities Australia. owned by a group of Australian universities. Students across Australia, overwhelming supported by FEE-help. Most students enrol in individual undergraduate units. Open 2 study - 49 4 week courses online and free to all. non accredited. All delivered by universities.

Worked with 4 public libraries in NSW to promote and support students. OUA connect library sessions held. OUA publicised to students, libraries promoted sessions to students. 20 students attended at least one session. demographic analysis undertaken. Feedback overwhelming positive. Post pilot survey generally positive feedback.

5 per cent of total student cohort living within he library regions attended at least one session.

Expanded to 9 NSW and 6 Victorian public libraries in 2013.  More added 2014 - semester 1 and 2.

It was most successful where libraries run a welcome to your library session at the beginning of a session.


COPYRIGHT panel

Astrid Bovell, Copyright Communications Officer, The University of Melbourne reported on actions to support MOOCs at the University. MOOCs require careful copyright management. Complexities of undertaking content clearance for individual resources for MOOCs, particularly because of the “M”.  Easier to get clearance from small players. difficulties of finding who owns the copyright.  One BBC extract took 4 months to clear.

Melbourne is in second year of getting clearance, it is still very labour intensive. Additional complexity as publishers may change their mind about a clearance.

Asked librarians for support - offered training and spread the load and up skilled staff.   Over 400 hours spend on clearances last year.

Sandra Rothwell, Manager Teaching and Learning Service, University of Queensland reported that UQ began working closely with MOOC creators in the last 18 months. Bob Gerrity made contact with UQX and creators of MOOCs. Significantly less work provided by the Library than Melbourne. Issues include finding publishers who only had print rights, resources where it was extremely difficult to find copyright owners and getting a timely response from owners. She noted the importance of sharing responsibility. Copyright officer provided template for requesting right to use in MOOC.

Sue Owen, Director, Digital Scholarship and Deputy University Librarian, Deakin University noted that  Deakin MOOCs have matured with greater engagement with the library. The Library's key contribution was identifying open educational resources (OER). About 25 per cent of exiting courses were online. Using OERs saved developing big machinery around rights clearance. Have well developed a website about open access and licensing, used DOAB, DOAJ, etc.

Major work occurred with development teams around digital literacy - one MOOC. Ann Horn, UL, is the library leader.

The Library is actively involved in course enhancement and academic learning teams, building on existing relationships. Learning resources created by the library are reimagined and reworked, particular with less text, in MOOCs. Some exciting developed are occurring with gamification, images, avatars.

Graduate learning outcomes were introduced in 2013 – the library has carriage of building student capability in digital literacy. Roles is to find, use and disseminate information. Contributing to evidencing of skills e.g. scoop-it for digital curation, producing a digital portfolio, use storify for presenting tweets.  Developing academics skills also an important agenda for 2014/15.  Also addressing this in the MOOC environment.





Roxanne Missingham

University Librarian

No comments:

Post a Comment