Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410240029
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Long since accepted into the Virginia Tech lexicon, the term refers to the still-sometimes illicit practice of studying old tests.
But now students can stride right into a Main Street office renovated by the owner's carpenter-grandfather, plunk down a MasterCard or Visa, and purchase the next generation of study aides: A new notes-taken-for-hire service that has flummoxed the Tech establishment.
Tech Notes, operated by two recent Penn State graduates by licensing agreement with a similar service there, allows students to buy copyrighted lecture notes scribed by anonymous classmates.
Does this create carte blanche for students to skip class?
That's the major concern of the American Association of University Professors, which has watched this trend pop up at schools around the nation.
"What happens when students buy notes and don't go to class?" Spokeswoman Iris Molotsky asked. "We feel there is a diminishing of academic quality."
Tech administrators agree.
"There are many people in the university that are very concerned about it," spokesman Dave Nutter said. "It has just emerged this semester, and we have been looking at it."
As they examine the service, they'll find many questions to explore.
Like laptop computers, does Tech Notes widen the educational opportunity gap between those who can afford it and those who can't?
Or is it a sophisticated study aide that allows students to better participate in class discussion?
The chief justice of Tech's University Honor Code maintains that the practice violates the code, which prohibits unauthorized possession of academic materials.
One professor wonders if copyrighting the notes infringes on his academic freedom in his own classroom.
Just what the legal ramifications in Virginia might be are unclear, because Tech Notes appears to be the first of its kind in the state. The university attorneys have found conflicting case law, Nutter said.
"For the rest of this semester, Tech Notes is in a very gray area," said Eric Burnett, chief justice of the honor court. "It would be up to an individual professor whether to allow it or not."
Film Professor Steve Prince says he didn't have a choice.
"They've targeted all classes over 150 [students]," Prince said.
The co-owners of Tech Notes came to Blacksburg prepared for potential controversy. Eric Arcudi and partner Grady Goodwin both worked for Nittany Notes, a parallel business in State College, Pa.
"It's one of those things. Professors either love it or hate it, and we've had both reactions," said Arcudi.
So far, Tech Notes has contracted with 22 anonymous note-takers with a minimum 3.2 grade-point average. They are organizing and copyrighting the notes from 23 classes. The arrangement keeps the note-takers from "being bugged" by their classmates, and shields them from potential grading bias by disapproving professors, Arcudi said.
Fifty students have paid the $29 for a semester's worth of class notes. Pro-rated fees are charged for individual exam periods - "exam packs," as they're called in the business.
Arcudi said he and Goodwin checked out Blacksburg and selected the campus after spending a year working under Tom Matis, the Pennsylvania financial counselor who refined the note-taking concept.
Matis has heard all the arguments since he took over the then-ailing Nittany Notes from a student six years ago.
"Students would misuse the service and blow off class. That's the biggest concern most professors have," Matis said.
But the service stresses that the notes are no replacement for classes, he said.
"What I've found, over the years, is if students want to miss a class, they're going to miss it. They're going to get notes from classmates, fraternity, sorority."
Matis also has faced professors worried about their academic rights.
"When I first bought it, there was a senate faculty committee investigating the note-taking service," he said.
The committee found that professors maintain copyright interest in "original works of authorship" used in classes, although registered students can sell their original notes. As a result, the service doesn't sell such faculty-generated items as a syllabus.
Prince says the practice steps on his academic freedom.
"They're copyrighting the information they put into note form. Like many professors, I develop ideas in my lectures, and write them later.
"Does this mean I have to cite myself? They're profiting off me - my intellectual labor. My contract with the university doesn't really give them permission to do this," he said
Molotsky said copyright concerns are not new.
"I don't have a definitive answer," she said. "Some people feel indeed it is an infringement. Others feel [lectures] belong to the institution."
Matt McAllister teaches an introduction to communications class at Tech. An anonymous note-taker is at work in its midst this semester.
"The bottom line is: I teach an 8 a.m. class. It's going to be tempting not to come to class because of this resource.... The punishment for not going to class is not as severe."
Counters Matis: "They still have to take the notes home and study them."
by CNB