Several Web sites now are offering University students money for posting their course notes on the Internet, a practice University and Honor Committee officials say may challenge the University's ideals of intellectual integrity.
Two such sites, www.studentu.com and www.allstudents.com, offer students up to $300 and $400 per semester, respectively.
Neither site charges Internet users for accessing course materials.
Honor cases are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but professors who claim notes as their intellectual property conceivably could press honor charges against students who sell them, Committee Chairman Hunter Ferguson said.
Julian Bond, University lecturer and NAACP chairman, said he does not allow students to sell notes from his courses because they ideas and work that are his property.
"My work is my work," Bond said. "It is intended for use by my students, but it belongs to me."
He said he warns his students every year against selling notes and would try to remove any student from his class that did so.
These Web sites also have raised questions about the practicality of substituting study guides for class attendance at the University.
Many professors already post lecture notes on individual course home pages, but they encourage students to use the notes as supplements for lectures and course activities.
However, University Senior Vice President Ernest Ern said because allstudents.com and studentu.com pay students for notes, students should seek professor permission before accepting compensation.
"It would seem [asking permission] would be not only the appropriate but also the honorable thing to do, because individuals would benefit by monetary gain," Ern said.
Studentu.com already posts this semester's lecture notes for two University courses, BIOL 207 and DRAM 281.
The courses' professors, Theodore Homyk Jr. and Walter Korte Jr., could not be reached for comment.
Faculty Senate Chairman David T. Gies said students who substitute online notes for their own also are cheating themselves out of a valuable college experience.
"I would suspect that students soon would learn it is not the best way to get an education," Gies said.
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