Ethics of making students purchase lecture notes

Question

I have a professor who has published his lecture notes in the form of a book. The only way to get access to his lecture notes is to purchase them from an off-campus bookstore. To me, this seems like a highly unethical, if not illegal, practice. Shouldn't students have access to lecture notes as part of the tuition fees that they have paid?

A common question seems to be whether we are actually required to purchase the notes. To clarify, he routinely skips teaching chapters in class and asks them to read them from the notes on our own. So yes, we have to buy the notes if we want to be taught the entire syllabus.

Edit: The notes are different from the textbook. The textbook is not really needed, while the notes are fully needed. I'm seeing people confusing the two and claiming that many professors prescribe their own textbooks for the courses. My question is to whether access to notes should be free and universal for every student in the lecture.

Answer 1

(This answer is based on US university practices. I don't know if it is directly applicable to Canada, but the two systems generally tend to be similar.)

It's hard to be sure, but this might be a practice that's old-fashioned but not unethical.

First of all:

Shouldn't students have access to lecture notes as part of the tuition fees that they have paid?

Not necessarily. If the course requires materials that have a non-negligible cost, then typically students will be required to pay for them separately. This includes textbooks, lab supplies, and, as in this case, custom-printed "course packets" of notes or other reading material.

Now, normally the university has its own service for printing course packets and selling them "at cost" through the university bookstore. However, it sometimes happens that professors decide that some other bookstore or print shop can produce the packets better or cheaper, and so they have them made and sold there. This may or may not be technically allowed by university rules, but it may be tolerated, especially if it's actually saving money for the students. Note that in such cases, the professor normally doesn't receive any of the price of the packet; it all goes to the print shop.

So this isn't a completely unheard-of system for distributing printed material.

You could certainly ask the professor why they've chosen to do it this way. My guess is you'll get a response like "I used to use the university bookstore, but the packets were always late / fell apart at the binding / ran out of stock / cost twice as much." So you could try and complain about the use of an unofficial distributor, but be careful what you wish for.

It raises the question of why the notes have to be distributed in printed form at all, instead of electronically (in which case there should be no costs at all). I can imagine this happening if the professor is very old-fashioned and hasn't ever realized that this would be better, or if the notes don't exist in electronic form (e.g. they are handwritten or typed on a typewriter), or just "has always done it this way". But it would be reasonable to suggest, either directly to the professor or in a course evaluation, that they consider electronic distribution.

Answer 2

You might be interested to know that U. of Kentucky has just initiated moves to fire a tenured professor who did exactly this. https://www.chronicle.com/article/U-of-Kentucky-Moves-to-Fire/243509

However, the professor in this case had also used the university's funds to print the book, so its possible this is what they were upset about.

Answer 3

It's a scam, but you are stuck with it. Historically, the cost of the pamphlet covered the printing costs. With PDF technology, that's bunk. If you are truly broke, the University Library should have a copy. If not, ask that they purchase a copy as it is a required book for a course (they may already have done so).

Also for that reason, books are not 'required course material' and so are not covered by tuition. While a joke, the lecture notes are effectively a 'book' that the library should have a copy of.

Answer 4

The university and/or the teacher must, in my opinion, do both of the following:

• Make a copy available as a file (e.g. PDF).
• Have multiple printed copies available at the university libraries.

Doing just one of these is insufficient, but not terrible. Doing none is basically a shake-down for extra tuition, which I believe students (and junior faculty!) should not tolerate.

However, as @Wetlabstudent has pointed out - perhaps you should first give the Professor the benefit of the doubt, for, shall we say, having been remiss in his duty, or not having taken notice of how problematic this is. If that's the case, then just asking him to make the notes otherwise available could work. I'm skeptical of course.

Assuming it's been made clear that the Professor will not allow access to his notes except by purchase at the store, I suggest you do the following:

1. Talk to fellow students in your class about this.
2. Approach, together, the course teacher, demanding that at least one of the above forms of availability be realized.
3. If he refuses, confront him, jointly, in class, demanding that this be addressed and trying not to let him get away with it. Caveat: This may theoretically get you into disciplinary trouble, although that's unlikely. I would still do it though.
4. get your student union reps to intervene and pressure him and/or the department - if they exist, are willing and are able.
5. If your student union reps don't act, pool some money together and by a copy which you could define as "owned jointly by the students taking the class". Scan the printed lecture notes and distribute the file everyone who contributed or to every student in class who asks, depending on your generosity. Caveat: This may theoretically get you into disciplinary/legal trouble, you have been warned. I would still do it though.
6. Make sure that if anybody asks, this be described as a collective class project rather than something you did, so that you don't get singled out.