SPARC-ACRL Forum: Understanding the Implications of Open Education: MOOCs and More

The open access movement has focused on making scholarship freely available, expanding distribution while lowering barriers for re-use. The open educational resources (OER) movement has focused on making teaching and learning materials freely accessible and openly licensed. The skyrocketing rise in the popularity of MOOCs (massive open online courses) has put this trend squarely on the front burner, bringing openness to pedagogy in a way not previously experienced in higher education–and expanding free distribution of a university course to tens of thousands of students around the globe.  

This convergence holds great promise for open education, and also raises questions on what that future might look like. A panel of experts will explore the recent developments and policy implications of open education, the rise of open resources, and the potential impacts of this trend on libraries and higher education. They will also discuss both the promise and potential pitfalls of MOOCs and OERs as part of open education.  

Speakers include:

• Kyle K. Courtney, Harvard Law School
• Cable Green, Director of Global Learning, Creative Commons
• Georgia K. Harper, Scholarly Communications Advisor, University of Texas Libraries

@SPARC_NA will moderate Twitter chats. Just follow hashtag #OAForum13 to join in the conversation.

For further information, contact Stacie Lemick at stacie@arl.org.