The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 27, 2000, Page A2, Image 2
Carolina News__
E-commerce questioned on U.S. campuses
by Ted Gregory
College Press Exchange
Andrew Cobum is studying bioengineering
at the University of Illinois at Chicago with the
dream of one day designing tissue to replace ru
ined ligaments. He already has a very marketable
skill, however: taking notes.
Cobum, a senior from Lombard, earned $2,000
last semester for posting the notes from his psy
chology class on a Web site. He was the top note
taker for Study24-7.com, a company that pays
Cobum according to how many people look at his
site. For that diligence, Study24-7 rewarded Cobum
and his wife with an 8-day trip to Hawaii.
“Every single day,” Cobum said wistfully, “my
wife and I think about that trip. Every single
day.”
University and college administrators have been
thinking a lot about Cobum and thousands like him
who, with a few keystrokes, are becoming a con
troversial influence in higher education. Sprouting
across the country in the last two years, e-busi
nesses that pay college students for their notes are
generating serious concern as well as praise.
Critics say the enterprises corrupt classroom
learning and violate professors’ intellectual
property rights. Supporters say the sites help stu
dents learn, create a healthy exchange of knowl
edge and have almost no effect on class attendance.
“The key is that commercial enterprises are
intruding into the world of the classroom,” said
Mathieu Deflem, assistant professor of sociology
at Purdue University in Wfest Lafayette, Ind., a lead- ‘
ing critic of the note-taking e-businesses.
“The relationship in the classroom is very sen
sitive,” said Deflem, who created a Wfeb site last
fall that serves as a clearinghouse of the commer
cial services (http://www.sla.purdue.edu/peo
ple/soc/mdeflem/). “It is upheld only with respect
and dignity. Students and teachers should be left
alone with that.”
Added Jonathan R Alger, counsel for the Amer
ican Association of University Professors, in Wash
ington, D.C.: “I don’t feel that the thing is inher
ently evil, but the lesson that it sends to students
is that even the classroom experience is up for sale.
Everything has a price.”
Companies providing notes on the Wfeb con
tend that the service is a supplement—not a sub
stitute—for class. Furthermore, they say that pro
fessors typically encourage students to compare
notes with classmates and that notes on the Inter
net are the evolution of a service that has been on
campuses for decades.
“Students make the decision to skip classes for
a number of reasons,” said Janet Cardinell, direc
tor of campus relations for Versity.com, which calls
itself the fastest-growing “academic communi
ty.” She conceded, however, that her company and
others like it may provide a reason.
StudentU.com President Oran Wolf, who made
his national launch in fall 1999, said he had “a hand
ful of professors calling and expressing their dis
pleasure.” This semester, he said, “we haven’t had
any.”
Wolf added that professors who might check
attendance after a paid note-taker arrived in their
class would find little if any difference.
“Students know better than to use it as a sub
stitute,” he said.
Cobum and other note-takers interviewed
agreed. He said blaming him for students missing
class is similar to a killer blaming violent, graphic
music for a murderous rampage.
“We’re all adults here,” he said. “You go to col
lege. I’m not responsible for you. You’re respon
sible for yourself. You’re in control of yourself.”
Although it is unclear exactly how many note
selling e-businesses exist—Deflem has counted
13—the three major players say that they each have
student note-takers on more than 100 campuses.
The three, which make their money from ads on
the W3b site, also claim to have note-takers in thou
sands of classrooms.
Illinois schools are well covered. Versity.com,
which says it has note-takers in nearly 7,000 class
rooms on 147 campuses, is at Eastern Illinois,
Illinois State, Southern Illinois in Carbondale,
the University of Illinois at Chicago and Urbana
Champaign and Western Illinois.
StudentU.com, which says it has 121 campus
es covered, has note-takers at DePaul University,
Illinois State, Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois
and both major campuses of the University of
Illinois.
Study24-7.com, Cobum’s employers, says it
works on 300 campuses throughout North
America and Europe, including the University of
Illinois’ campuses, the Illinois Institute of Tech
nology, SIU, EIU, WIU, NIU, DePhul, Illinois State,
Bradley, Chicago State and Loyola.
As the companies spread faster than dirty laun
dry on a dorm room floor, professors and univer
sity administrators are debating the trend.
“Students have many ways of learning,” said
Michael Cummings, an associate professor of ge
netics at UIC who lectures for Cobum’s educa
tional and financial benefit.
“If this is another way that they can use to learn
the material, then I’m all for it.”
Cobum informed Cummings at the semester’s
first class that he planned to take notes for pay.
Cummings allowed it. Since then, Cummings re
ported, about four students have told him Cobum’s
notes have been very helpful, and attendance for
the class has remained steady at about 200 students.
Cummings and other professors did
that students who depend solely on the notes from
a Web site are “running the risk” of assuming the
notes are accurate and complete. Also, Cummings
said, students who cut class miss valuable interac
tion between the professor and students.
“Part of the challenge of learning and being a
good student is knowing how to take good notes,”
Cummings said, repeating the sentiments of many
professors. “That’s a required skill, and I don’t want
to do anything to stop the students from acquiring
that skill.”
Cummings is in a slightly different position
from other professors when it comes to potential
intellectual-property infringement. He wrote the
textbook he uses in the genetics class, leaving him
unconcerned about losing compensation. £
Many universities, including the University of
Illinois, DePaul, the University of Chicago, North
western and Loyola, have no specific policy on
selling notes on the Web, and no universities
have filed a lawsuit against an e-business for the
practice.
Judge bars access
to students' records
by Christine Tatum
College Press Exchange
Washington - Universities would vi
olate federal privacy laws if they re
vealed students’ disciplinary records or
details of campus judicial proceedings,
a federal judge ruled this week.
Monday’s decision has further
stymied efforts by The Chronicle of
Higher Education to access student dis
ciplinary records from two Ohio uni
versities. U.S. District Judge Geoige C.
Smith found that campus judicial files
and proceedings are “education records”
protected under the federal Family Ed
ucational Rights and Privacy Act, com
monly known as FERPA. The law
prohibits institutions of higher educa
tion from disclosing records including
“personally identifiable information”
that a student or his or her parents have
not authorized the school to release.
The ruling has angered campus
crime experts and journalism groups
across the nation, who say colleges have
used campus judiciary panels to con
duct closed hearings that, in effect, hide
illegal and embarrassing information
that would be made public if reported
to police.
“What the judge is saying is that you
get special protection by committing
a crime on campus, and that is patent
ly offensive,” said Kyle Niederpruem,
president of the Society of Profession
al Journalists. “What’s also horrible is
that the victims of many campus crimes
will never have their claims see the light
of day.
“Everyone has the right to know
about crime on campus,” Niederpruem
added. “Parents and students need the
information to make informed deci
sions.”
The Chronicle case stemmed from
a 1997 Ohio Supreme Court ruling that
disciplinary records were not “educa
tion records” and were, therefore, sub
ject to public inspection. The
court ordered Miami University to re
lease complete records — including stu
dents’ names — to a campus newspa
per that had sued to see them under the
state’s public-records law.
Bolstered by that decision, the Wash
ington-based Chronicle requested stu
dent disciplinary records of both Mia
mi and Ohio State universities. Both
institutions were complying with the
request when the department stepped
in and filed suit against them for vio
lating FERPA. Because the universities
didn’t challenge the department’s law
suit, The Chronicle intervened as a third
party.
Smith sided with the department,
and cited legal precedents holding that
federal statutes should apply to all is
sues and documents except those specif
ically excluded. Because FERPA pro
vides some exemptions, but not one for
disciplinary records, Smith concluded
such documents are “education records.”
He also stated that campus judicial pro
ceedings — and the resulting documents
— were not “criminal in nature,” but
instead an internal way of campus codes
of conduct.
‘Tell that to someone who has been
date-raped or sexually assaulted,” Nieder
pruem said.
In his decision, Smith stated em
phatically that colleges and universities
must continue publishing annual statis
tics on the number of campus crimes,
including hate crimes, murder, rape,
robbery and theft.
“The Court believes that these dis
closures are adequate to inform students,
prospective students and parents about
the safety of various college campus
es,” Smith wrote. “Releasing the per
sonally identifiable information of the
students accused or convicted of vio
lating university regulations, as well
as information about victims, would not
further advance the public’s interest.”
Statistics aren’t enough to paint
an accurate picture of campus crime,
said Mark Goodman, executive direc
tor of the Student Press Law Center
in Virginia.
“The judge’s suggestion that sta
tistics are all students need to be in
formed is a joke,” he said. “For starters,
statistics most schools provide are in
accurate, and secondly, they’re-at
least a year old.
“And they don’t help a young
woman who’s walking alone across cam
pus to know what areas she needs to
stay away from,” he added. “That’s be
cause statistics alone don’t provide any
of the detailed information that would
allow her or anyone else to take pre
cautionary measures.”
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Gay student says co-ed dorms are discriminatory
College Press Exchange
Medford, Mass. - A senior at Tufts University is
pushing housing officials to allow co-ed rooms on cam
pus.
Carl Sciortino Jr., who is openly gay, says the uni
versity’s same-sex housing policies are discriminatory
against both homosexual and heterosexual students. By
offering same-sex rooms only, Sciortino maintains that
the university is creating sometimes-awkward situations
for gays and lesbians, who “have sometimes developed
crushes on their roommates.”
He also insists it’s not fair to have housing policies
that allow gays and lesbians to live together, but not het
erosexual couples who are romantically involved.
Tufts administrators considered experimenting with
10 co-ed dormitory rooms next fall, but quashed the idea
earlier this month. A university spokeswoman said se
niors, juniors and some sophomores can live off campus
if they don’t like housing rules and that the university
is happy to work with first-year students who are un
comfortable with their roommates.
University officials are also fast to point out that
many international students would object to co-ed liv
ing for cultural and religious reasons. Sciortino sus
pects Tufts officials aren’t owning up to other motiva
tors.
“They’re afraid of losing alumni donations,” he sauL
Only a small number of institutions, including
tioch, Bennington and Marlboro colleges, have co-ed
dorm rooms.
Man who raped,
murdered student
executed last week
College Press
Exchange
Oklahoma City — A man who ad
mitted robbing and murderinga 21-year
old Oklahoma State University stu
dent from Wisconsin was executed early
last Thursday.
Kelly limont Rogers, 31, was giv
en a lethal mix of drugs at the Oklahoma
State Penitentiary for the Dec. 19,1990
murder of Karen Marie Lauffenburg
er, formerly of Whitefish Bay, Wis., a
suburb of Milwaukee. She and her par
ents had moved to Oklahoma to that site
could study interior design at OSU. A
scholarship is now offered there in her
name.
Rogers’ court-appointed attorney
said no emergency appeals were planned
to spare Rogers’ life. Rogers' final ap
peal was denied in January, and he was
denied clemency earlier this month. Dur
ing a meeting with the Oklahoma Par
don and Parole Board, Rogers said he
was truly sorry for killing Lauffenburg
er and that he would gladly trade his life
for hers if he could
Rogers’ remorse wasn’t enough to
mitigate the egregious circumstances
surrounding Lauffenburger’s death, said
Frank Muret, the prosecutor who han
died Rogers’ 1991 trial.
“The young woman was tortured to
death,” Muret said.
Court records relay the following:
Only five weeks out of prison, Rogers
ordered a pizza and told his girlfriend,
Audra Todd, that he intended to rob the
person who delivered it. Lauffenburg
er, an OSU freshman who made extra
money by delivering food, made the de
liver to Todd’s apartment. Afterward,
Rogers followed Lauffenburger out of
the apartment.
He held a knife to her throat and
took $40 in pizza money she had col
lected. He forced Lauffenbuiger to dri
ve to her apartment, where she was to
retrieve her ATM card. She did, and
Rogers forced her to withdraw $175
from her account at a nearby ATM ma
chine. He then forced her to return to
her apartment, where he stabbed and
raped her as she was either dead or dy
ing.
Todd testified against Rogers, stat
ing that when he returned to her home
he showed her S275 and then spent
the rest of the evening doing crack co
caine and drinking wine.
He was later convicted of first-de
gree murder, rape, robbery and larceny.
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Student j oumalists
detained by police
Journalists detained for
staying too late at office
College Press
Exchange
Buffalo, N.Y. — Police at the Univer
sity of Buffalo detained three student jour
nalists whose deadlines have been clash
ing with university orders that they vacate
their newsroom in the student union by
midnight.
School officials want the union, which
houses the “Spectrum” closed and emp
tied by midnight—a stiff order for staffers
scrambling to put out a newspaper three
times a week.
Three editors were leaving the union
15-20 minutes after the ordered closing
time March 19 when campus police picked
them up.
“Three of us were detained in a hold
ing cell,” Spectrum Editor in Chief Beena
Ahmad said. “My two managing editors
_ I
were patted down. The police showed us
a memorandum that said if any members
of the Spectrum were left in the student
union after hours, not to make an excep
tion.”
It wasn’t the newspaper’s first run-in
with law enforcement since the unive^
ty’s curfew. Ahmad and others already
face college chaiges of trespassing after
failing to leave the building several weeks
ago.
School officials said the dispute has
nothing to do with free speech or the char
acter of the students involved.
“It is about compliance with univer
sity standards and the reasonable requests
of university officials,” said Dennis R.
Black, vice president of student affairs.
Cabinet
from page A1
rector of student services, Eaddy said.
She said the market director and
public relations director’s positions
will be combined, and there would be
one director of Greek life where there
had been one position each devoted to
fraternities and sororities.
Eaddy said she was also dropping
the assistant chief-of-staff position.
“The chief of staff could handle
that position,” she said.
Eaddy said she will have a goal
or project awaiting each Cabinet offi
cer when they take the position, in ad
dition to any goals those officers might
already have.
Eaddy will annouce her cabinet
appointments April 4 and send them
to the student senate for approval April
5.
read it. .
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be it.
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)
Napster •
from page A1
involved therein — worth it.
“If they banned it, it would really be
kind of harsh, because that’s where I get
all my music from,” said John Sagona, a
mechanical engineering sophomore. “I
just downloaded maybe 20 songs off it in
the past hour.”
According to Mowery, the amount of
Napster usage at USC isn’t clogging net
works enough to force a ban anytime soon.
NAACP • •
from page A1
tryway to the building housing the state’s
two top courts — the Supreme Court and
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. It
includes an image of the battle flag and
quotes Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Another plaque includes the seal of the
Confederacy.
Mfume also was expected to discuss
voter education and census participation
during the Southwestern Regional Con
ference, which ended last weekend. The
organization’s agenda for 2000 includes
combating racism, saving affirmative ac
tion and registering about 4 million vot
ers nationally.
Mfume, a former congressm^frr^
Maryland who headed the Congression
al Black Caucus, took over leadership of
the NAACP in 1996.
) .... '