The Internet is loaded with educational resources of all kinds. But don't look for class lecture notes to be one of them.
A bill signed recently by Gov. Davis prohibits unauthorized commercial use of classroom presentations, including the posting on the Internet of class notes without the instructor's permission. Such postings became popular last year when several Internet companies, including Versity.com and StudentU.com, began publishing students' notes of lectures from classes around the country, including UC Davis. The companies paid students enrolled in the classes to take the notes.
The University of California already had policies in place that prevent unauthorized commercial activities on campuses and unauthorized use of the university's name, said Steve Drown, UC Davis campus counsel. With the new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, UC has an additional means of halting online publication should it want to use it, he said.
The law, which calls for fines ranging from $1,000 to $25,000, requires community colleges and the CSU system, but only requests the UC Regents, to enact policies to prevent unauthorized note sales.
UC Davis' efforts to halt online publication of unauthorized lecture notes began last fall. That's when faculty members alerted the administration to the fact that lecture notes from campus classes were posted on two Web sites, Versity.com and StudentU.com, said Jan Carmikle, business contracts analyst specializing in intellectual property.
In October 1999, the university, citing violations of the state Constitution, state and federal law and various university regulations, demanded that the sites remove the notes. The university also requested that the companies stop recruiting and paying the students who took the notes, some of whom made as much as $300 a quarter for their work.
Though the university held talks with Versity.com at the company's request regarding possible acceptable ways to do business, the university continued to demand removal of the aunauthorized notes, Carmikle said. The company eventually pulled UC Davis' notes from its site. Versity.com, however, has since been taken over by San Diego-based CollegeClub.com and no longer offers classroom notes at all. StudentU.com, based in Houston, still has some UC Davis course notes from last winter and spring on the its site, and is still advertising for note-takers at campuses across the country, including UC Davis. Officials from StudentU.com did not return phone calls requesting comment.
The online notes bothered many UC Davis faculty members, said Jeffery Gibeling, professor of chemical engineering and materials science and head of the UC Davis Academic Senate.
"They worried about intellectual property rights and also about the quality of the notes themselves. With these online companies, they didn't have the option to review what was on the site, " he said.
The Academic Senate, he said, will be taking up the issue.
"The university, the faculty and the administration will work this out in a way that suits the needs of the faculty and the University of California," he said.
Drown said the companies posting the lecture notes were commercial businesses with little interest in verifying what they presented online. Their sole purpose, he said, was financial.
"They're selling ads," he said. "This is their mechanism for distributing the material. Their main goal is not accuracy unless it could impact their advertising."
Charlie Nash, an emeritus chemistry professor who worked with the UC Faculty Associations in support of the legislation, agreed. "They were god-awful," he said of the online notes. "They were an embarrassment to any faculty member whose lecture was put on the Internet."
The posting online of unauthorized lecture notes is an example how new technology is forcing society to rethink how information is presented. While Gibeling believes that the unauthorized posting of lecture notes online violates faculty members' rights, he does admit that the Internet provides instructors with challenging opportunities.
"Things are changing so rapidly," he said. "It's awfully hard for anyone to keep up with the developing technologies."