Controversy.com

Black Issues in Higher Education, Oct 14, 1999

AMES, Iowa -- A new Web site that pays students at 70 colleges and universities all across the country to post course notes online so that other students can reap the rewards has hit a hitch here at Iowa State University.

Several instructors have complained that selling class notes without permission from professors violates university policy. "We expect students to abide by this as a rule of ethics," says Paul Tanaka, Iowa State's director of legal services.

Some Iowa State professors have complained that they don't want their classroom musings included in the online notes. And Tanaka contends that knowing a paid note-taker for StudentU.com is in class could stifle class discussions.

Marcia Prior-Miller, an associate professor at Iowa State's journalism school, calls the Web site launched last month the "short view and the unethical view" of education and an "abuse of the intellectual university environment."

But the site's creator and officials at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, from which notes also are posted, disagree.

"Students should be encouraged to go as many places as they can to get as much information as they can," says John Folkins, the University of Iowa's associate provost for undergraduate education. "Notes are really the student's interpretation. One could say the more different representatives of material, the better."

John Soloski, the director of the University of Iowa's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, says he supports the concept but adds that he was "appalled by how bad the notes are."

Besides notes, StudentU.com includes study guides, chat rooms, a campus bookstore and career center where resumes can be posted. Students can access the notes for free. Students make up to $300 a semester for posting notes within 48 hours of the class. The quality of the notes is monitored and their usefulness is determined by student comments, says Oran Wolf, the site's Houston-based creator.

Note-takers are not asked to record and transcribe classes, he says, adding that the site is not an intended substitute to attending class.

Steve Jones, the founder of a think tank devoted to Internet research and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago says that students, even those who regularly attend classes, are looking for supplemental information.

"Information online brings opportunities for students to learn from one another online," Jones says, adding that such sharing is nothing new. "I'm sure my students have just as easily been photocopying their notes for one another."

Students who violate Iowa State's no-selling rule ultimately could be suspended, but officials first want to make students aware of the rule's existence. At the same time, interest in Wolf's Web site has been strong.

Wolf estimates that 1 million hits are made daily at the site and says he's been flooded with calls and e-mails from interested professors, students and parents.