Students hoping to make a few extra bucks by selling their class notes could face consequences with the university by violating the student code of conduct.
Mike Gillilan, director of Student Rights and Community Standards, said students who serve as brand ambassadors for companies such as Notehall, a Chegg website that allows students to upload class notes and sell them to other students, are not only taking advantage of school resources, but also bothering students.
Mike Gillilan said the prohibition is because these resources are to be used for academic purposes, not commercial gain.
"You pay for some of the university's operations through tuition, but many of the university's operations are subsidized by state tax dollars as well," Gillilan said. "You're not supposed to use that to get a little business on the side, which is what Notehall essentially becomes for students."
On her first day as a brand ambassador for Notehall, freshman Kathryn Brewer accidentally sent multiple email messages advertising the service to hundreds of Ball State students.
"My computer froze, so it sent the message like six or seven times," Brewer said. "I got tons of hate mail, from people in my classes I didn't even know."
Brewer said Notehall advises its brand ambassadors to use Blackboard or other similar services to reach out to students, especially if they have large lecture classes. The elementary education major said she didn't know at the time that using technology resources for commercial purposes is prohibited at Ball State.
When students do use these resources inappropriately and complaints are made about their actions, Gillilan said the offending students receive a notification that the university is aware of their misuse and they need to stop. Students are warned that further action will be taken if they don't comply with university policy.
"I suspect that part of that action would be loss, for a period of time, something along the lines of wireless access," Gillilan said. "There's no desire to remove the sort of fundamental computing resources that would cause a problem for you to finish a class or something like that, but wireless access is really more of a convenience than it is a fundamental part of your education."
In the handful of times students have received these warnings this semester, Gillilan said no further action has had to be taken. Brewer described being petrified when she received her warning.
"I felt so horrible; I know I should have checked on that before," Brewer said. "I totally agree with the rule, totally understand it, but being a freshman, I didn't know. I was just trying to do what my new job was telling me to do and I didn't realize it would be an offense but it was."
Brewer said she apologized multiple times to her classmates and teachers for essentially spamming their inboxes, and has since stopped advertising Notehall in any way but through word of mouth with friends.
As far as the use of Notehall by students, Gillilan said administrators are wary of academic dishonesty or intellectual property disputes that could come of it, but the university has no official policy against students using the site as long as they do it without going through Gradebook or other Ball State resources.
Ron Rarick, an associate professor of art who teaches classes for which notes have been posted for sale on Notehall, said he doesn't mind students using the service as long as they aren't directly copying teachers' PowerPoint presentations and selling them for financial gain. He said he does, however, take issue with students using Gradebook to promote their products.
"Part of the ethical issue there is it kind of dilutes the importance of Gradebook messages," Rarick said. "Instructors are using Gradebook to reach students with sometimes rather important information, and if Gradebook is going to be used to push all kinds of miscellaneous messages, I'm afraid students would stop looking - sort of like it's more trash from Gradebook."
For his part, Gillilan said he hopes students seek other means of bettering their academic standing.
"There are also a number of resources that are available to students that you are in part paying for already and that are also being paid for by tax dollars - for instance the Learning Center - to help you do better in school," Gillilan said. "I just think that as a community of scholars, we should be interested in helping each other succeed academically, and I don't think we need to be asking each other to pay us for that."
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