[Smt-talk] Course (anti)Hero

[Michael Buchler]

Dear colleagues,

On Tuesday, the *New York Times* published an article about new ways  
that college students cheat and some defensive techniques that  
colleges and universities are now employing. The article mentioned a  
website I hadn't heard of called coursehero.com, which the reporter  
called "a kind of Napster of homework sharing, where students from  
more than 3,500 institutions upload papers, class notes and past exams."

I was naturally curious and found that Course Hero was selling access  
to about a dozen documents written by one of my colleagues. When a  
representative of Course Hero was contacted, she removed the  
documents, and claimed that their terms of use prohibit students from  
uploading what they have no permission to upload. (Never mind that  
the site seems entirely designed to allow students to share other  
peoples' materials.)

I bring this up because some of you might want see whether your  
materials are being shared (or rather sold) against your will. There  
is a "contact us" link at the bottom of the Course Hero page, where  
you can find an e-mail address to contact Course Hero and file a  
complaint. The key to getting material taken down is:
1.  State that you have a "good faith belief" that posting this  
material has not been authorized by the copyright owner;
2.  State under penalty of perjury (make this explicit) that the  
information in your letter is accurate and you are authorized to act  
on behalf of the copyright owner.

No matter how much we might believe in internet freedom and/or desire  
public domain teaching materials, we all work too hard to have our  
materials stolen and then sold behind our backs.

With best regards,

Michael

P.S. Here is a link to the *NY Times* article: http://www.nytimes.com/ 
2010/07/06/education/06cheat.html?src=me&ref=general


-----------------------------------------------------------
Michael Buchler
Associate Professor of Music Theory
Florida State University College of Music

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