Course Hero officials at the time said that they responded aggressively to complaints brought under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but that “as a user-generated content site, we don’t review the content … Unfortunately, at times we recognize that users may submit materials that they don’t have rights to.”
Building out the website’s resource-sharing platform remains Course Hero’s top priority. But its other two “big bets,” Grauer says, are (1) using the vast data at its disposal (in terms of the sorts of content and help students are looking for) to create its own content and (2) building out its portal for educators.
Course Hero made news in business and technology publications last week by becoming the latest education technology company to see its value soar past $1 billion. This column explores an issue altogether different from Course Hero's valuation: Has the company become a valued player in the learning ecosystem in the eyes of faculty members?
To unblur Course Hero answers, you need to inspect the page, click on “Sources”, and open “split-0-page-1” in a new tab. After you’ve opened “split-0-page-1” in a new tab, remove “-html-bg” from the URL to unblur the top half of the answers.
But its other two “big bets,” Grauer says, are (1) using the vast data at its disposal (in terms of the sorts of content and help students are looking for) to create its own content and (2) building out its portal for educators.
Grauer, the Course Hero CEO and co-founder, says the company combats potential academic misconduct in every way it can. Any time it identifies cases of abuse, "or where it becomes exceedingly clear that there is abuse," site monitors "remove that content.".
Oakley failed an early test in a course on circuits, she says, because she didn't understand a concept the professor had never introduced in class. Other students didn't fail -- and when she pressed, she learned that most of them had had an old exam of his that revealed the trick.
Course Hero was founded in 2006, one of a slew of websites that enabled students to post and download syllabi, worksheets, essays, previous exams and other course materials. Among its differentiators was that the materials were all tied to specific courses.
Higher education is evolving "to be more collaborative and dynamic and less lecture/exam/research paper-based," Rettinger adds. And when that happens, he says, "technology and pedagogy will come together in ways that really benefit students.".
It's a "totally legitimate point that sharing documents can be beneficial in some particular cases and that tutoring can be legitimate in many cases," says Rettinger, professor of psychological sciences and director of academic programs at the University of Mary Washington, in Virginia.