We have known for many years that Cornell students have been using internet sites to buy and sell course materials, including exams and exam answers, lecture notes, problem sets and answers, and student papers.  In the last few years, there have been repeated instances of Cornell students engaging in “contract cheating” – students subscribing to or paying fees to internet sites, so-called “study sites,” such as Chegg, CourseHero, and Slader to get answers to exam questions or course assignments and to have essays written for them, which they then submit as their own work.

Cornell students have also recorded lectures and discussions and captured and removed course materials, even exams, from course learning management system sites, such as Canvas, and sold them to internet sites. Some of the vendors facilitated these transactions by falsely conveying to students that an instructor had approved the sale of course materials.

Buying, selling, reproducing, copying, distributing, acquiring, or sharing course materials or content beyond the course environment without an instructor’s prior written permission violates the Code of Academic Integrity.  Recording any portion of classroom lectures, discussions, and activities in related instructional spaces (e.g., laboratories or studios) without an instructor’s prior written permission also violates the Code.

If you wish to discourage your students from engaging in such behavior, you are encouraged to state in class and include in your syllabus an explicit prohibition, such as follows:

You are prohibited from buying, selling, reproducing, copying, distributing, acquiring, or sharing course materials or content, including through online “study” platforms such as Chegg, CourseHero, and Slader, without my prior written authorization.  You are also prohibited from recording any classroom lectures, discussions, or activities in whole or in part without my prior written authorization.  If you engage in such behavior, you violate the Code of Academic Integrity. Such prohibitions do not include instances where written permission is given to support student accommodations.

Remember, too, that materials for sale may contain errors. There have been occasions when students have done poorly on exams and/or their unauthorized use of purchased work was discovered because the materials they purchased contained errors.

If you share or sell course materials or lecture content, even your own class notes summarizing lectures, without my authorization, you may also be participating in copyright infringement. Original course materials are copyrighted intellectual property of the creator of the content and are not a student’s property to share, distribute, or sell.

Although not legally required to protect your copyright, you are encouraged to include a copyright notice on any course materials (including class notes and exams) that you author and post on Canvas or distribute in hard copy.  By including such a copyright notice [©][author’s name][year], you put students on notice that the material is intellectual property belonging to you, the holder of the copyright, and not the students’ property to do with as they wish. If students were to remove a copyright notice, that behavior would create a higher level of culpability. Such a notice would also make it easier for you to take down materials from internet sites.  Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), to have materials removed from a web site, the copyright holder or an authorized agent must personally request the removal. For instructions on how to locate and request removal of copyrighted course materials sold on internet sites, go to https://copyright.cornell.edu/course_material.