“‘FlashNotes’ website allows students to purchase class peers’ notes” |
| ‘FlashNotes’ website allows students to purchase class peers’ notes Posted: 03 Feb 2011 09:12 PM PST Students who take high-quality notes have a chance to be compensated for their hard work, and students wishing they had the study habits of the straight-A student in class have the opportunity to simulate them — for a fee. FlashNotes.com is a website that allows students at colleges and universities across the United States to sell their lecture notes and other class materials they think are worth more than a pat on the back. Sellers can set their own price for their work based on the quality of the material. FlashNotes, founded in December 2009 by Mike Matousek, a 2010 graduate from Kent State University with a degree in finance and entrepreneurship, makes its apparent goal helping students learn from their peers. "I came up with the idea my junior year of college after I saw a need in one of my classes," Matousek wrote in an e-mail. "Students were just having a hard time understanding the material presented by one of my statistics teachers, and they were constantly asking for my notes." Shortly after the website launched, Matousek partnered with ex-NFL player David Petruziello. Petruziello was a mentor to Matousek throughout the life of the company and together they developed it into a Youngstown Business Incubator Company. Later, they partnered with Hitchcock Fleming & Associates to keep expanding the company. The website is simple to use. Anyone can set up an account. The process involves typing in a username, password and university or college name. Once the information is provided, a user can begin paying to upload and download notes. The website grows daily and sees higher traffic as semesters and quarters progress. "We have more than 5,000 users from 32 universities," said Katie Greenwald, assistant account manager and PR representative at Hitchcock Fleming & Associates. Originally, the website catered only to students at Kent State, but once Matousek saw students' reactions, he made it available to universities nationwide. He was proud of the site's popularity after the launch. "It was exciting to see that within the first weeks of launching the site, we had over 700 transactions," Matousek said. Currently, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is not on the list of universities available, but creating an account will put it on the list. The website hosts anything from class notes to study guides, Greenwald said, although notes for introductory courses are the most common. "The reasons may be because there are more students in those classes, so there are more opportunities to sell, or because those classes tend to have freshmen who have not yet learned college-level study techniques," Greenwald said. A student can make sizable profits from uploaded notes if they are of high quality. Class notes sell for a minimum of $1.99, but the average asking price is $5. "We've had single sellers make hundreds of dollars off of one set of notes that were sold multiple times," Greenwald said. The seller receives 80 percent of the transaction and FlashNotes takes 20 percent for operating costs. Matousek believes the website gives students a different kind of opportunity through their program. "FlashNotes gives students the ability to start their own business within our site," Matousek said. "We have had students request fliers, e-mail their classes and essentially market their notes to make a substantial amount of money while helping their classmates at the same time." FlashNotes may be a great resource for students looking to sell their class materials for a little extra cash, but Tom Larson, a music lecturer at UNL, doesn't understand the concept of purchasing other students' materials. "My only problem with the site is that I don't understand why anyone would want to pay for someone else's notes," Larson said. "You know nothing about the note taker's academic standing, or even whether they are a good note taker." The site allows users searching for notes to see 1/3 of the page, so buyers can have a short preview of the quality before they make their decision to purchase. There is also a rating system that lets users rate the quality of the class materials posted. "We've had some concern from educators who are afraid that students may use the site to cheat," Greenwald said. "However, students won't pass tests or improve grades by simply purchasing notes." Larson said he does not find purchasing the notes unethical, but risky. "Caveat emptor," Larson adds, which in Latin means, "Let the buyer be aware." As for the future of FlashNotes, Matousek said he wants to let the users decide that. "I see FlashNotes as being an amazing resource for college students to learn in new and exciting ways," he said. "We want our users to guide FlashNotes and let us know what else we can do to help them succeed." alexkrzemien@dailynebraskan.com This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Content Keyword RSS To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment