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

Thu Jan 30 17:18:44 UTC 2014

Coursera's contract with Michigan is on the public record
http://chronicle.com/article/Document-Examine-the-U-of/133063/

Being CC licensed within Coursera isn't "optimised" openness as it can only
be found by the X thousand people doing your course, and then only when
that course is running.

http://lawsfolio.londoninternational.ac.uk/eclmooc/ is pretty much an exact
copy of UoLIA's MOOC on Coursera, minus the final assessment and readings

On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 5:11 PM, Billy Meinke <
billy.meinke at creativecommons.org> wrote:

> 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-----
>>> Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux)
>>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>>>
>>> iEYEARECAAYFAlLqUR4ACgkQjQTt6JEMiWmo3wCgiSvcH2ZdDGhNh+uZuh4ZteOA
>>> FYkAn29eHHr9uMSVS2sEHwgr7pE8uVAt
>>> =xt/X
>>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Marieke Guy
>> LinkedUp <http://linkedup-project.eu/> Project Community Coordinator |
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>> The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>
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>
>
> --
> Billy Meinke
> Project Assistant <http://creativecommons.org/staff#billymeinke>
> Education at Creative Commons
>
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