Wednesday, October 6, 1999

Armed With a Web Site and Links, a Professor Takes On Lecture-Notes Companies By FLORENCE OLSEN Mathieu Deflem is a lone professor crusading against a group of Internet companies that he condemns as intruders into the private, privileged relationship between a professor and his "The audacity!" says a professor who opposes lecture-notes sites. "Somebody intrudes upon you, and then says, 'Can we work this out?'" students. Mr. Deflem, an assistant professor of sociology at Purdue University, has converted a portion of his academic Web site into a mini-clearinghouse of information about Internet companies with names like Versity.com, StudentU.com, and Study24-7.com. The companies pay college students to take notes in lecture classes, and then make those notes available free to other students on Web sites that are paid for by advertising. (See a story from The Chronicle, October 1.) After he became aware of the new companies a month ago, Mr. Deflem says he raised objections directly with the Net entrepreneurs -- by e-mail messages and in letters -- that the companies eventually acknowledged. But only one of the two companies honored his request to remove his course listings from its Web site. Now he wants to raise awareness among colleagues and students. His Web site -- dressed up with slogans like "Go to class and enjoy the company of real living people!" and "Down with the Anti-Education Companies!" -- lists 10 companies that he has been able to identify so far. "I'm sure that a more-organized response is needed, but the site is a first step," he says. It provides short summaries of news stories about publishers of class notes, as well as the names of academics who share Mr. Deflem's distaste for the companies. Mr. Deflem also posts his views on "the educational cost of free lecture notes on the Internet." His other strategies for dealing with what he considers bad behavior by these Internet companies have been less successful. Mr. Deflem's criminology course, Sociology 342, was listed without his permission on the Versity.com Web site as a course for which the company was looking to hire student note-takers. He sent a message to Versity, requesting that his course be removed from the list. The company, he says, didn't respond -- even when he kept up the e-mail campaign for two weeks. Most galling, he says, was the voice-mail message he finally received, suggesting that the company's representatives "wished to work out a 'mutually agreeable solution' with me." "The audacity!" was Mr. Deflem's response. "Somebody intrudes upon you, and then says, 'Can we work this out?'" The professor says he fared only a bit better in his experience with an on-line bookseller, Bigwords.com. When Mr. Deflem went to the site to look for his own course, he noticed a statement saying that the instructor had not yet approved of the posting, which listed his course title, reading list, final exam date, and e-mail address. Without doing anything more, he logged out of the site. Seconds later, he logged back in, only to find that the disclaimer had changed and now read: "The information on this page has been reviewed and approved by Professor Mathieu Deflem, guaranteeing you the most reliable source for your course materials on-line! Thanks, Professor Deflem!" "Thanks a lot indeed!" says Mr. Deflem. Background stories from The Chronicle: Putting Class Notes on the Web: Are Companies Stealing Lectures? (10/1/99) Colleges Object as Companies Put Course Notes on Web Sites (9/17/99) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article