New online note-sharing marketplace to pay students for course resources

Educational services company Cengage Learning is partnering with note-sharing website Flashnotes to launch an online marketplace, in which students at colleges, such as Boston University, can buy and sell course notes.

Cengage announced Wednesday that it will incorporate Flashnotes into its existing product MindTap, an online learning platform that provides study materials, in January. Students will be able to sell notes, study guides and other materials to their classmates, receiving 70 percent of the asking price.

Cengage saw a need to provide its users access to content generated by other students, said Josef Blumenfeld, the company’s senior vice president of corporate affairs.

“What we’ve heard from students in the research that we do is that they wanted peer-to-peer support,” Blumenfeld said. “They wanted the ability to reach out to students that are in their class. Students do this all the time informally. They share notes. They do study groups.”

In order for a class to be listed on MindTap, professors have to purchase access to the program for their students. In turn, any professor can prevent students from selling material for their course by not participating, Blumenfeld said.

“The way I think about it is the sharing economy,” he said. “Students are sharing their notes and making a little cash on the side.”

Flashnotes expects the partnership with Cengage to benefit their company by introducing its service to students already using MindTap, according to an email the company sent to The Daily Free Press.

School of Management Business Policy and Law Professor Kabrina Chang cautioned that by using someone else’s notes, students may be depriving themselves of a learning experience.

“They can’t really immerse themselves in the discussion of the class or really think deeply about the subject matter of the class if they don’t listen and take their own notes,” Chang said. “Handwriting your own notes, pedagogically, is an incredibly efficient way to reinforce learning.”

Having access to resources such as course notes may cause students to be less diligent in their academic efforts, Chang said.

“It can lull students into this dangerous sense of complacency that they think if they have notes, that’s all they’re going to need for the class, and they’ll be successful,” she said. “They’ll just sort of memorize those notes and be done with it. And that’s an incredibly dangerous, dangerous mindset to have.”

Chang said though she has not banned the exchange of notes in her classroom, she believes students who do so miss out on the class’s fundamental purpose.

“BU is expensive, so to not get the most out of the classes is like a waste to me,” she said.

BU students had mixed opinions on whether or not purchasing notes is an acceptable practice.

SMG sophomore Isabela Franco said she does not have a problem with students paying for classmates’ notes, though she feels those who do put themselves at a disadvantage.

“The more you study and the more you do throughout the semester, the more you’re going to get the material,” Franco said. “If they want to buy the day before the exam, they buy the material and study for it that way, that’s their loss. They’re losing money, and at the end of the day, they’re not learning as much as they could have.”

Sarah Lukose, a junior in Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said relying on purchased notes could foster apathy in students, but they can also be a useful tool in studying.

“It’s a cool system, but also, I think it’s easier and better for yourself to take your own notes,” she said. “If you’re using the other notes as a supplementary system, go for it, but chances are, you’re buying it just so you don’t have to take notes.”

Maggi McGarry, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said two friends comparing notes is preferable to purchasing notes.

“I don’t think it’s very fair, because if I have to go sit through a lecture and take my own notes, then I don’t want somebody to be making a profit off of [doing the same],” she said.

McGarry said making MindTap an opt-in service, controlled by a course professor, will not prevent students from finding alternatives to share notes.

“People are always going to find a way around things, so it might just be perpetuating the problem,” she said. “But it’s nice that the professors are getting involved in it so they can oversee what’s going on.”