It is a little-known fact, but the Iowa State Faculty Handbook has a provision against selling class notes.

However, the manager of Notes, 111 Lynn Ave., the company that sells lecture notes to ISU students, said the clause does not apply to his business.

On page 67 of the handbook, in the section headed “Ownership of Course-Related Presentations,” it states, “Course-related presentations are owned by the presenter. Individuals may take written notes or make other recordings of the presentations for educational purposes, but specific written permission to sell the notes or recordings must be obtained from the presenter.”

The provision, approved by the Faculty Senate on May 2, 1995, is intended to protect professors’ information, notes and personal research from being sold by someone other than the professor.

“We don’t have the presenter’s information, we have the students’ interpretation,” said Ron Moore, manager of Notes. “The notes we sell are the students’ interpretation of the lectures they attend. It isn’t the professors’ specific material.”

Notes opened for business at the beginning of fall semester 1996.

An article in the Daily on Sept. 16, 1996, quoted Associate Provost Edwin Lewis as saying, “There is no such policy restricting such a service. If a student is registered for a course, the university has no control over what the student does with his or her notes, even if that includes selling them for money.”

Who actually owns the information professors present in their classes?

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education cites one case in which the University of Florida sued a note-taking company, claiming it had infringed upon the university’s copyright by selling summaries of classroom lectures.

The university lost the suit, and the company has counter-sued the university for trying to disrupt its operations.

The jury in that case said 90 percent of what professors say in their lectures are known facts or ideas that do not belong to anyone.

Therefore, it said, it should not be illegal for students to further express and reiterate ideas and concepts they heard in a class. The fact that the other 10 percent might be original is not relevant, according to the jury.

Some teachers and administration have questioned the necessity of selling these notes, Moore said.

They claim students will no longer feel they need to attend class, or because the students did not take the notes themselves they will not understand the course content as well as if they had written them down.

“Obviously a student who just buys the notes without attending class is not going to do well on the exam,” Moore said. “These notes are to be used to supplement a class, not to remove the requirement of attending the course.”

He said one note-taker he hired was told by his adviser that he should stop taking notes because there could be “repercussions from the university.”

In another incident, Moore said, a theater professor allegedly made “snide comments” about Notes and its employees during a lecture about a play featuring a prostitute and her customer.

“He made connotations that the note-taker was the hooker and we were the pimp,” Moore said. “If he’s got a problem with our service, fine. But don’t involve the student when the student’s tuition is paying the professor’s salary.”

An economics professor last spring demanded that Notes discontinue offering his class, but Moore said his company continued to offer the course due to several compliments about the notes from that lecture. In fact, a student raised his grade from a D on the first exam to a B+ on the second by using Notes’ supplementary material, he said.

Despite troubles in the past, Moore said, such conflicts “happen very rarely.”

“We have maybe one professor each semester upset that we’re offering their class,” he said.

George McJimsey, history department chair and instructor for History 221, said he has two reservations about professional notes.

“I think note-taking is a valuable skill that students ought to cultivate and develop themselves because it carries on through the rest of life,” he said, noting that those who do not learn how to take notes will be one step behind in the business world.

“Also, I thought that the quality of the notes was designed for a multiple-choice test, not an essay test,” he said. McJimsey’s class, which was covered by Notes last fall, used essay tests.

He said he has heard some faculty conversations about note-takers, but, he said, “As far as I know, no one has thought it was an invasion of their professional domain.”

Starting this semester, an ISU chemistry professor is reviewing the notes from his class every week to make sure of their quality.

“Many teachers don’t know that we are here. We will supply them with free copies of the notes to both ensure their correctness, and so that we can improve our courses,” Moore said.

Each student who purchases notes helps maintain their quality, Moore said.

After each test in every course, the students are asked if the notes helped them prepare for their exams, how the notes could be improved and if the notes are complete and understandable, he said. The management then turns this information over to their employees to improve the notes.

Like any job, there are a couple of job requirements all employees must meet.

The student note-takers must be registered in the class in which they are taking notes, and he or she must have a 3.2 cumulative GPA. Note-takers can have a 3.0 GPA if their major GPA is 3.5 and if they are taking notes for a class in their major.

Originating at a California university in the mid-1950s, the concept of selling notes has grown into a very large and in-demand industry. In every state, at almost all large universities, there are similar companies that offer this type of service.