[Open-education] ZDNet: Coursera regrets: Students from Cuba, Iran, Sudan banned due to U.S. law

[Billy Meinke]

>
> I would assume (though I may be wrong) that if the Universities
> moved/copied their MOOCs from Coursera back on to their own sites then
> students in Cuba, Iran and Sudan could access them freely. Or they could be
> hosted elsewhere as Pat suggests. Anyone know any more about this that
> could comment?


I would assume this to be correct. AFAIK Coursera is granted a
non-exclusive license to the course materials uploaded by a partner
institution. The institution retains original copyright, and should be able
to release the materials under an open license (CC?) and distribute them
via their own hosting, or other repositories/referatories that are not
subject to the same conditions as Coursera's for-profit (and VC-backed)
company.

There have been some instances where Coursera courses have been marked with
a CC license, such as the University of Michigan's "Instructional Methods
in Health Professional Education" course (CC BY-SA 3.0 US). See the FAQ
section of this course:

https://www.coursera.org/course/instructmethodshpe

All of this assumes that an institution would want to place an open license
on the content (making it "open," or OER), and be able to distribute it in
a format outside of Coursera's site framework that would be useful to
educators and learners. Individual learning components (videos, quizes,
etc) aren't always as useful outside of the framing of a MOOC site, IMHO,
but that is a separate issue.

Tldr; If institutions properly marked their learning resources with an open
license, and made them available outside of Coursera's site, they would not
be subject to the trade restrictions placed on Coursera.


On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 5:29 AM, Marieke Guy <marieke.guy at okfn.org> wrote:

>  Hi Andre,
>
> I noticed the Coursera post earlier, it's a very sad situation.
>
> My understanding is that the issue Coursera has is that it is technically
> a commercial company.
>
> The ZDNet article says:
>
> "As the organization is not non-profit and does make money from students
> pursuing particular certificates or exams, under U.S. law, Coursera's
> courses are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions
> as they are considered exports. As of this week, students in Cuba, Iran or
> Sudan cannot log in to course pages or create new accounts, but can still
> browse the course catalog and reach Coursera's blog as they are "considered
> public information rather than services and therefore not subject to
> restrictions."
>
> The Open Knowledge Foundation on the other hand is a not-for-profit
> organisation with a central base in the UK. I'm assuming we are not
> governed by US laws.
>
> I would assume (though I may be wrong) that if the Universities
> moved/copied their MOOCs from Coursera back on to their own sites then
> students in Cuba, Iran and Sudan could access them freely. Or they could be
> hosted elsewhere as Pat suggests. Anyone know any more about this that
> could comment?
>
> Marieke
>
>
> On 30/01/2014 13:28, Pat Lockley wrote:
>
> Only if the OER was hosted solely in the USA - and then logically some one
> could download it (via CC license) and upload elsewhere.
>
>
>
>  On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Andre Jaenisch <ryunoki at openmailbox.org>wrote:
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> you've probably already read it: Coursera, a MOOC provider placed in
>> U.S. has blocked its services for students from Cuba, Iran and Sudan:
>>
>>
>> http://www.zdnet.com/coursera-regrets-students-from-cuba-iran-sudan-banned-due-to-u-s-law-7000025728/
>>
>> The reason: U.S. export law.
>>
>> This raises the question in me, wether this could happen to OER as well.
>> Which law is applied to, say, the handbook?
>> After all, people from several nations worked on it.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>> Andre
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>>
>> iEYEARECAAYFAlLqUR4ACgkQjQTt6JEMiWmo3wCgiSvcH2ZdDGhNh+uZuh4ZteOA
>> FYkAn29eHHr9uMSVS2sEHwgr7pE8uVAt
>> =xt/X
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>
>
>
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>
> --
>
> Marieke Guy
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-- 
Billy Meinke
Project Assistant <http://creativecommons.org/staff#billymeinke>
Education at Creative Commons
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