Massive Open Online Librarianship: Emerging Practices in Response to MOOCs

Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, have recently emerged as a disruptive pedagogy gaining rapid momentum in higher education. In some states, proposed legislations would accredit MOOCs to provide college-credit courses in the name of cost saving, efficiency and access. While debates rage regarding the place of MOOCs in higher education, some librarians are already tasked with supporting student learning within this untried context. Challenges faced by librarians seeking to support MOOCs span all traditional academic librarian roles: instruction, reference and collection development. To successfully serve these new communities of learners, librarians must apply existing best practices established by distance learning librarians as well as develop new skills and approaches. This paper offers a brief introduction to the current state of MOOCs in higher education, explores the needs of MOOC students and discusses possible best practices to be adapted and adopted as librarians prepare to serve this emerging student population.