Mooks

From a PDF at Educause:

Students may be unaware of the ownership implications when they submit content to a MOOC. User agreements - standard on every MOOC platform - generally give the provider rights to license and redistribute user-generated content, often in perpetuity.

An example of a standard agreement (wording is basically the same across platforms) illustrates the point: By submitting or distributing User Postings to the Site, you hereby grant to [provider] a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferrable, assignable, sublicensable, fully paid-up, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to host, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, modify, distribute, redistribute, relicense and otherwise use, make available, and exploit your User Postings, in whole or in part, in any form and in any media formats and through any media channels (now known or hereafter developed).

In other words, by participating in a MOOC the user agrees to grant the platform provider a sweeping license to do what they want with the user’s content.

Thinking of expanding that essay? You don't own it.