SURYA QUINONES
STAFF WRITER

California State University and University of California campuses recently addressed private note-selling between college students, while some are already facing consequences.

According to the investigative reporting website, California Watch, this issue raises questions as to who owns copyrights of the notes, the students listening to lecture, or the instructor providing the lecture. Professors at UC Berkeley and CSU Chico are concerned with note accuracy. They fear that these notes are provided by students with low grades. As a result, low note quality could ultimately hurt the instructor’s reputation.

“Students that [sic] are downloading or buying this in- formation [are] actually not fulfilling their obligations to the university,” Adolfo Muniz, Anthropology professor at UCSD and CSUSM, said.

Different websites including NoteUtopia and Chegg have received letters from CSU and UC campuses in their attempt to shut down the space available for students to post their notes up for sale, according to California Watch. Although some websites have already complied with the CSU/UC system’s wishes other web-sites continue to provide these notes for sale. There have already been some changes made to school policies in regards to attaining and purchasing notes from such websites. CSUSM’s student conduct “prohibits any business or person from selling or otherwise distributing or publishing class notes for a commercial purpose,” (California Education Code section 66450).

Muniz found this situation to pertain more to a plagiarism issue as well: “I don’t support the ban [of websites] but I do support actions against students using these notes for plagiarism.”

But there are some students who are more than willing to support the ban, seeing that some of the notes posted are from students with failing grades.

“I think students who got A’s and B’s in the class should put up their notes… but not students who have failing grades. I don’t know how the website would judge that, but I understand that a D student shouldn’t put up their notes [for sale],” Karen Hernandez, CSUSM sophomore and Biology major, said.

Outside sources and critics state that the universities are focusing on the wrong aspects of the situation, and the notes are simply there to share knowledge. There is still a discussion about whether disciplinary students should receive disciplinary action, although some students have already been reported in regards to their affiliation to such purchases.