JUSTIN CHEN/YH

Versity Blues

This weekend, the Internet-based Versity.com removed all notes for Yale courses from its website. The decision to take down the notes came shortly after Dean Richard Brodhead's, BR '68, GRD '72, announcement last week, emailed to all undergraduates, that Yale's Vice President and General Counsel had made a written demand that Versity.com "cease posting notes from Yale courses on its website and remove any notes that had previously been posted."

According to Janet Cardinell, Director of Campus Relations at Versity.com, the notes were removed because Versity.com still "wanted the opportunity to talk with the Dean's office." She explained, "We were contacted by the Administration. We took the notes down for the whole campus as a courtesy to the Administration so we could open up the dialogue-it was a gesture of goodwill." She further maintained, "We think this is a great opportunity to work with [the Yale Administration], and we're looking forward to the opportunity. What we want to do is cooperate."

Initial Ad-versity

Cardinell stated that Versity.com has been trying to contact Dean Brodhead's office since December to ask for permission to begin its operations at Yale. "We sent e-mail, voice mail, and letters, but never received a response," said Cardinell. The company decided to begin on-campus marketing during January despite the lack of communication with the Dean's office. Cardinell explained, "We usually get student note-takers first, which helps identify which classes we're going to be working with."

Lydia Monroy, PC '00, Versity.com's Yale Campus Operations Manager, noted that students seemed very receptive to the company's presence. "People jumped on it quickly," Monroy said. "We already had note-takers for 37 classes in a couple of weeks even though we hadn't hit it that hard." In fact, the response to Versity.com's marketing campaign was so positive that, according to Monroy, a total of approximately 100 students applied for the position of note-taker. After the company had stopped hiring, 24 total students had been accepted as note-takers, several of whom were supplying notes for multiple classes. A seven-person "marketing team" managed all of Versity's on-campus presence.

Nor was the enthusiasm for Versity.com confined to students in it for the money. According to Monroy, "after less than two weeks approximately 15 percent" of the total undergraduate body was registered on Versity.com's site. By Cardinell's estimate, up until the notes were removed, "seventeen percent of all students had registered, and were using notes on the site." She added, "The students really value those notes."

In the body of Brodhead's email, which was sent out last Friday, the Dean stated, "There is a consensus that Versity.com's actions are a deeply troubling commercial intrusion into our classrooms, an improper exploitation of the intellectual property of the instructors, and in many instances a misrepresentation of courses."

In response to the commercial aspect of Brodhead's concerns, Cardinell stated, "The question then is, 'Is typing up notes running a business?'" Monroy agreed, arguing, "For many students, taking notes for Versity is like a job." She later stated, "Are we saying that student can't have job here at Yale? How about the people who make Yale shirts and sell them on campus? Or students in frats who put up signs, and are also representing commercial interests."

Yale Professors take a stand

Professor Robert Sternberg, who teaches an Introductory Psychology course, would tend to disagree with Cardinell and Monroy's assessment of the situation. He stated, "This whole enterprise seems wrong to me. It is basically a profit-making idea in the guise of helping students." Sternberg teaches one of the more than 50 courses for which Versity.com was still seeking student note-takers before the notes were abruptly taken offline.

Sternberg, who says that he only discovered that Versity.com was targeting his course through "a letter from the Provost's office," would tend to agree with Brodhead's claim that the notes on Versity.com are "in many instances a misrepresentation of courses." He noted, "Much of what I do is spontaneous. I don't think you get the same value from online notes." Class lectures are especially important in Sternberg's Psychology class because "they constitute about 50 percent of the tests."

In response to Sternberg's comments, Monroy maintained that Versity's notes were "always meant to be a study aid, and never meant to replace a classroom experience." Monroy was also quick to dismiss comparisons of the notes on Versity.com to transcripts of the lectures, stating, "The notes are not word for word. Our note-takers are asked to organize the materials by subject, and to only put up what they think is important." A note-taker hired by Versity.com, who wished to remain anonymous, agreed, saying, "I don't think students will use it as an excuse, and it won't make that much of a difference in terms of who skips class. If people are paying 30 thousand dollars for a school, they'll want to go to class."

Even in classes for which lectures are not necessarily the most important aspect of a student's approach to learning of the material, however, Professors still find Versity's practices unnecessary. Professor Jonathan Spence, SY '61, GRD '65, whose popular "History of Modern China" class consistently is filled above official capacity, discovered three weeks ago from one of his TAs that lecture notes for his class were being offered online through Versity.com's site.

Spence was not very concerned with the prospect that online notes would allow students to miss lectures. "The importance of the lecture depends on the student. Some students don't take any notes at all, and others take them down at a feverish speed, and that's up to the student." He later added, "In a sense, lectures are voluntary anyway." He also commented that if a student wants to miss every lecture and to pay someone else to take the notes every day, it isn't up to the professor to interfere.

Spence's main concern was with the inability of the professor to play a role in the process. Although he did not wish to comment on the quality of the notes that he read, he stated that his main concern is that "professors should be asked about their notes, and they should be able to make their own summaries and put them on the web." He was also concerned that online notes do not provide the proper context for understanding a lecture, stating, "In my lectures, I talk around and at the reading."

Versity.com maintains that professors can still exercise control over the note posting process. According to Cardinell, a web-based "communication package" called IZIO allows professors to communicate with students, and it "only takes about a half hour to set up a whole website for a course." Through Versity.com's system, professors can post a course's syllabus, handouts, and assignments, all on a password-protected site. Students can sign on with a password and see the information provided by the professor, get assignments, see their grades, and so on. There is also a separate ability for the professor and the note-taker to exchange documents. The professor can first read through the notes and provide feedback to the note-taker, who is then responsible for correct the notes to be posted.

As for the students...

On the whole, students remained enthusiastic about Versity.com's services. David Moss, BR '01, discovered online notes for his Music 145 class, "Jazz: America's Music" when Versity representatives passed out printouts of the web-based notes of the previous day's lecture last week. This strategy, according to Monroy, was only tested in six classes before the controversy erupted last Friday. Because a test was coming up later that same week, Moss decided to give the site a try. He commented of the notes, "They were complete and accurate," adding, "For the most part I used them to complement my own notes." Although Moss stated that he "could see it for some people as being a substitute for class, which could be a problem," he also commented that "Just as a student, and all legal issues aside, I'm in favor of [Versity.com's services]." The popularity of notes for that particular class is well documented; according to Monroy, over 100 students in Jazz and American Music used the notes.

The anonymous note-taker also praised Versity's value. "I think that it's a really good service, and I thought it was a great resource for students and something I wanted to get involved in," said the note-taker, who is posting notes for both John Merriman's History 202 class and George Hall/William Nordhaus' Economics 116 class. She stated that all note-takers hired by Versity.com have already been "paid for all notes they put up so far," but they "can't post notes until [the Administration] figures things out."

Yale's reaction

Last week, Vice President and General Counsel Dorothy Robinson sent a letter to Versity.com, demanding that the company remove its online lecture notes for the Yale campus. As Cardinell stated, Versity.com complied with Robinson's demand to avoid controversy and to facilitate discussion between the two sides. Dean Brodhead's email alerted the student body to the Administration's official stand on the issue but gave little indication of how Yale would proceed with Versity.com.

There are mixed feelings about how the Yale administration reacted to the controversy, but in general, students and professors are satisfied with Yale's approach to a potentially tricky situation. Spence said, "Yale reacted very sensibly and swiftly." Monroy also vouched for the university, saying, "I understand where the pressure is coming from, and Versity should have asked for permission first." She added, though, "I think it's unfortunate that it is happening right now because of midterms. Many students were planning on using Versity.com's notes for their midterms but didn't get a chance to print them out before they were taken down."

Supporters of the online notes were also accepting of the university's response. Moss stated, "The issue in question should be resolved by legal means, and it's time that Yale asserted itself." Moss also wondered, however, why "this university should be different from any other," stating that if online note sharing is unethical, it should be outlawed everywhere and not just here at Yale.

The anonymous note-taker stated, "It doesn't surprise me that Yale was unhappy about [the notes]. Maybe a permission-based system would have been the way to go from the beginning." But she also added in defense of her employers, "Versity hadn't had these problems with other campuses, and it basically just wanted to get its foot in the door first."

A unique problem?

Cardinell claimed that at "no other universities" has she had the same types of problems as she is having at Yale, further stating that in most cases school administrations are "very willing to respond." Versity's success with many other highly competitive schools around the nation is a testament to its ability to create compromises with academic policies at various educational institutions. Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Caltech, Duke, and Cornell are among the schools featured on Versity.com's site.

In several instances, Versity.com worked with university administrators to create a solution with which the professors could be satisfied. According to Cardinell, permission-based systems were implemented at Stanford, the University of Vermont, and the University of Michigan, such that only those professors who wished to participate in the online notes process would do so. Furthermore, Versity.com was able to make the notes at Stanford viewable only by students of that school, eliminating the concern that the professors' lectures would be open to scrutiny by just anyone with web access.

Although Cardinell maintained that Harvard's notes were taken down sometime this academic year due to "resource difficulties," the Crimson was actually faced with struggles similar to those now confronting Yale, and the two schools' administrations have evidenced similar reactions. Whereas Yale's Undergraduate Regulations for 1999-2000, as quoted by Dean Brodhead in his email, state that "no undergraduate may undertake to represent any commercial interest or to operate any business on the campus without securing prior permission from the dean of student affairs," Harvard's Handbook for Students is even more explicit, stating, "Students who sell lecture or reading notes, papers or translations...are similarly liable [to disciplinary action] and may be required to withdraw. In an October 21st article in The Harvard Independent News, ("Point, Click, Cheat" by Judy S. Kwok), Harvard College Dean Harry Lewis is quoted as saying, "[Selling notes] is a very serious offense," adding, "The College expects students to live by its rules." Lewis was unavailable for comment for this article.

Hope for the future?

Although it has bowed out of visibility at Yale for the moment, Versity.com looks forward to cementing relations with the Administration before too long. "We're really looking forward to the opportunity to work with them, getting a product that both sides support in favor of the students," Cardinell said. "Versity started with online lecture notes, but we have a broader vision for the company. We're not just lecture notes; we're an online program that supports online student learning-we have the knowledge center, practice exams, and question and answer groups, all for students to really get involved in academic pursuits. It's a broader issue than just lecture notes."

Cardinell also stated that plans for a compromise system similar to the one at Stanford could also be implemented here at Yale. She stated, "The concern that professors at Yale seem to have is that they're fearful that their information will be shared with others around the world-there are ways to address those concerns." However, until Versity.com manages to contact the Dean's office, no efforts can be made to provide a compromise strategy. "We're going to work with the Administration to figure out the best approach to develop a program that everyone can support. We offer permission-based programs at other campuses and they're working well-but I couldn't tell you now if the [Yale administrators] are going to accept."

Meanwhile, Yale is confronted with the reality that students actually made use of Versity.com's services, and that there might be a real need on the Yale campus for an online note-sharing system. Monroy agrees, but insists that Versity.com could still play an important role in the development of such a system. "It would be a great idea if the university had its own internal [note-sharing service], but through Versity.com there could be a way to restrict access to notes only to Yale students." She added, "We want to work with the professors to open their minds. They are passionate about their work and their ideas, and they should be, but hopefully we can help them to understand what a great service this is. It benefits students, helps learning, and we are hoping the professors will agree."

Both Sternberg and Spence disagree with the concept of online lecture notes in any form. Sternberg stated, "I don't think it is a good idea. Much of the value of a class is in being there. It is not all canned stuff. Students don't really get the whole value of a class with on-line notes." Spence's concern was that "there is no sense in formalizing the process." Acknowledging that missing classes now and then is inevitable, he said, "We need to treat students as grownups and let them handle the course themselves. If someone misses a class because she's sick, or has a game, or a stage production, she can get the notes herself on a one-on-one basis."

The anonymous note-taker, however, still maintains that online notes are essential to Yale's progress as an educational institution. "I'd be really disappointed if the university couldn't work something out with the company because it's a really good resource. Versity is willing to come up with a system that will work for everyone." She warned, "Education will be revolutionized by the Internet, and if Yale doesn't jump on the bandwagon now it'll be sorry in the long run."

Lola Ogunkoya contributed to this article

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