With finals fast approaching, many Tufts students are looking for ways to maximize their studying efficiency. One outlet that an increasing number of college students are choosing is CourseHero.com, an online study community in which students can share class notes, problem sets and past exams.
The site, which boasts users from Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University and Tufts, is raising ethical questions about its potential to encourage students to engage in plagiarism and academic dishonesty.
CourseHero, which was recently created by Cornell junior Andrew Grauer, offers students and teachers alike an array of study tools. "CourseHero is an open online study community for students, teachers and self-learners to publish and view academic resources online: outlines, solutions, study guides, exams, presentations, notes, formula sheets, essays and other works," said Armand Hershowitz, the vice president of marketing for CourseHero. Ultimately, the site aims to help students "study less, learn more, score higher."
To many Tufts students, the site's goal - and services it offers - are tempting. According to the CourseHero site, Jumbos are among a large group of regular visitors to the virtual study community.
While the aim of the site is to help students more deeply understand material reviewed in class, some fear that such a free exchange of information will encourage academic dishonesty, should students exchange term papers and notes and pass them off as their own.
CourseHero maintains that, while they provide study and review resources for students, it is the student's responsibility to monitor their use of the materials provided. "It is the responsibility of the individual to use the information found on CourseHero for good rather than bad," Hershowitz said.
Hershowitz argued that the materials and information found on CourseHero are present at other locations on the Internet. "Just because there is a resource which makes studying more efficient and easier, it does not mean that it is 'unethical' ... Unethical opportunities such as plagiarism or other forms of cheating may be possible, but are no more prevalent from any other study aid such as Wikipedia or review books," Hershowitz said.
Carmen Lowe, director of the Tufts Academic Resource Center and Writing Resources, agreed that the integrity of using such a site largely depends on students' use of the materials presented.
"If a student does not go to class but instead studies the notes, exams, handouts and other materials posted on CourseHero, that is not necessarily cheating," Lowe said. "If, on the other hand, a student plagiarizes part of a paper posted on CourseHero, that is plagiarism and that has nothing to do with CourseHero because student papers can be found all over the Internet."
But Lowe identified the posting of exams as one potentially controversial use of the CourseHero site.
"The one area of CourseHero that could be most problematic is if a Tufts student posts a copy of an exam online. If the exam is posted before the exam is held in class, making the exam public is considered cheating and would be no different from a student who finds a copy of a final exam left behind on a copy machine and then distributes copies of the exam to his or her friends in the class," Lowe said.
"Another possible violation of academic integrity is if a student were to post copyrighted materials to CourseHero, and some professors' PowerPoint slides are indeed protected by copyright," she added.
Lowe warned students against relying too heavily on the site. "It claims that students are somehow 'tutoring' each other by sharing materials. This really misrepresents what peer tutoring is because posting some old handouts or even self-created study aids is in no way, shape or form 'tutoring.'" she said.
The quality of CourseHero materials may also be questionable. While CourseHero claims to review all academic material submitted for authenticity and relevancy, Lowe explained that there are several flaws with this plan.
"People will post random junk just to get access to the site. The site creators claim to vet the material, but even if they do, they will be unable to judge the material's age, reliability or relevance. Even if some altruistic student wants to post his or her lecture notes, those are of little help compared to actually attending class, actively listening and taking one's own notes," she said.
