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I am a university student and have recently found out how much easier it is to use my smart phone to take snapshots of notes professors write on the blackboard during lectures (since I am quite bad at understanding and writing at the same time, it is very useful).

To make sure the professors do not have problems with this, I asked each of them before starting to take pictures. They all had the same response: they are fine with it, as long as I do not make the shots publicly available. Of course, I have no intention of doing so. However, it made me think: why do professors emphasise this? All of the material is already public, tens of different lecture notes exist, some of the profs even made their own lecture notes freely downloadable for anybody.

So my questions are:

  • How could bad quality pictures of the blackboard cause any harm to them?
  • Why would it make a difference if I copied the content into my notebook or typed it in word by word and published that? (I have never heard any professors asking the students not to upload the notes, they write themselves during the lecture.)
David Frank
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    Suppose you ask a book author: "Is it OK if i make a Xerox copy of your book?" What do you think they will say? Suppose you go to a music performance, and you ask them: "is it OK if I make a video of the performance on my phone?" What do you think they will say? – GEdgar Nov 16 '15 at 01:02
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    Maybe they want people to attend their lectures instead of students exchaning pictures of their blackboard writing? – Verena Praher Nov 16 '15 at 08:06
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    @GEdgar The book comparison doesn't work because you're not expected to make copies of books, whereas you are expected to copy down notes from the board. If I asked an author "Is it OK if I make a Xerox copy of your book?" they'd say no, whereas the answer to "Is it OK if I make a Xerox-like copy of your blackboard notes" was "Yes but for personal use only." Completely different situation. – David Richerby Nov 16 '15 at 08:22
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    As an aside, it seems to be increasingly common that lecturers write up their lecture notes in textbook form, and publish them (accessible to everyone) on their personal website. – Moriarty Nov 16 '15 at 08:43
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    Have you asked the professor? What is their answer? – Ooker Nov 16 '15 at 08:57
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    I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet but, it could also be that they don't want photos of themselves/others that might incidentally be in the frame to be published without the consent of those pictured. I could imagine a handful of ways that could be abused or might make others uncomfortable. – thanby Nov 16 '15 at 10:36
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    @GEdgar "Suppose you go to a music performance, and you ask them: "is it OK if I make a video of the performance on my phone?" What do you think they will say?" -- It depends on the band, but there are quite a number of them (admittedly mainly smaller ones) that not only allow this, but actively encourage it. – hvd Nov 16 '15 at 12:13
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    Why not talk to all of those professors again, this time asking why they said that, then come back and add your own answer here... ? – CGCampbell Nov 16 '15 at 18:56
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    As well as all the perfectly rational reasons answered, as a generational thing it may be that most simply have an emotional dislike of having themselves or their work plastered in an uncontrolled way over the internet. – Keith Nov 17 '15 at 00:48
  • Actually most people record shows and events with their smartphones and I never saw any artist asking YouTube to delete this videos – Freedo Nov 17 '15 at 21:05
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    @Keith: where by "emotional dislike" you probably meant "rational dislike", and by "generational thing" you meant "thing differentiating sensible grown-ups from immature people incapable of thinking ahead more than twenty minutes into the future". Right? ;-) – Dan Romik Nov 18 '15 at 07:31
  • @DanRomik. Pretty much yes - but as "sensible grown ups" I'd suggest we find the phenomenon creepy and then rationalize as much as the other way around. – Keith Nov 18 '15 at 22:45
  • On a side note, after reading on this quite depressive topic of abuse and cruel intentions: from now on, whenever I write anything that can be photographed, I'd feel obliged to use half of the board for a written disclaimer. Think fine print, piracy warnings in films, this sort of stuff is where it leads. – Pavel Nov 19 '15 at 12:26
  • Another possible concern - providing slackers who don't bother coming to class with the actual classroom material. – Wayne Werner Nov 19 '15 at 14:16
  • While I have fairly detailed sets of notes online, I occasionally get off script on the white board. I encourage the students to take snapshots, as I do myself for my personal record. All I can think of is that if you're improvising and get something very wrong, it might go viral on facebook. A teacher lacking in confidence might worry about that. – PatrickT Nov 21 '15 at 12:11
  • While I wouldn't be afraid of a student photographing my blackboard, I certainly do believe that students checking their smartphones in class is harmful. I wouldn't allow students to whip their smartphones in the classroom, no matter the excuse. – Stef Oct 16 '21 at 21:48

12 Answers12

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The scribblings a professor writes on the board during a lecture represent the lowest-quality type of content that that professor will ever present in public: handwritten, hastily created under time pressure and at a time of high cognitive load, messy, unchecked, and prone to error. On the other hand, professors, like any other professionals, will much prefer to be judged by the highest-quality content that they produce, e.g., their research papers, which are carefully crafted over a long period of focus and concentration, digitally typeset, polished repeatedly, and double- and triple-checked for accuracy. So, to the extent that a professor gets to control which of the content they produced gets publicly released, they will almost never voluntarily consent to the release of the low-quality content.

An analogy that occurs to me is that of a movie actor: for precisely the same reason as I described above, actors prefer for the public to form its opinion of them through their movies, and not through a paparazzi photo of them taken while they were out shopping for groceries, wearing disheveled clothes, no make-up, a sloppy hairdo etc. So, if you don't want to be like a paparazzi, you will respect the wishes of your professor and not publicly post photos of their blackboard writings.

Edit: I feel a need to clarify my remark about "lowest-quality type of content" and "hastily created [...] messy, unchecked, and prone to error". It seems that some people are reading this as a description of some kind of unprofessional professor who comes to class unprepared, delivers a poor quality lecture, then out of insecurity and fear of having their poor lecturing skills exposed publicly, refuses to allow pictures of their blackboard posted online. That is not quite what I meant (or at least is only one possible scenario covered by my answer). I was talking much more generally about any professor, whether excellent or poor, who comes to class, well-prepared or not, and delivers a lecture, which may be an excellent one, and then, for completely legitimate and rational reasons and not out of any insecurity, guilt, or shame, objects to having pictures of their blackboard posted online.

Why would they object if their lecture is so good? Some have asked. The logic behind this is that the blackboard scribblings, even of an excellent and well-prepared professor, will still be a type of content that was created during a very short amount of time (the time of the lecture), while the professor is busy doing several other things at the same time (talking to the class, figuring out the details of the math or whatever it is they are writing on the board, consulting their notes, keeping track of time, etc.), is under the psychological pressure of being watched by a large group of people (many people find this a stressful situation), and has no time or cognitive resources available to detect or correct small errors that may be introduced inadvertently, no matter how carefully prepared one is. So, in a purely relative comparison between this content and other kinds of content that the same professor creates (e.g., research papers, which as I've said are thoughtfully prepared over many months), blackboard scribblings are relatively speaking a low quality content. It is simply an unfair competition: two different kinds of content, two different quality standards, and for the reasons I explained, many professors quite reasonably prefer to have only one of the two types be posted publicly online.

Finally, note that all of this is not at all at odds with the fact that the blackboard writing can still be good or even excellent in the context of the lecture in which it is performed.

Dan Romik
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  • But why are they worry about that? Everybody knows that the lecture shouldn't be judged strict as other products (books, presentations, etc). Is that right? – Ooker Nov 16 '15 at 06:28
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    @Ooker why are movie actors worried about paparazzi? – Dan Romik Nov 16 '15 at 06:41
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    @DanRomik Usually because of the invasion of privacy, actually. – David Richerby Nov 16 '15 at 08:24
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    @Ooker So when a picture of a blackboard, showing a grave miscalculation, accidentally done by a maths professor in class, appears on Facebook, accompanied by a snarky comment about the professor's assumed inability of algebra, you expect that no one will share it and make fun of it, because "[e]verybody knows that the lecture shouldn't be judged strict as other products"? How can I regain your trust in humanity? ;-) – Dubu Nov 16 '15 at 08:45
  • @Dubu I would say that most of my Facebook friends have no idea about Lie group, and who know it won't make fun of it. Except something is really fun (like a graph looks like boobs), but that doesn't seem to be the case of OP's class. In that situation, the prof knows what to do. – Ooker Nov 16 '15 at 08:55
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    @Ooker I was thinking of something in the range of "2 + 2 = 5", obvious to everyone. (Except the writer. It is terribly hard to see such mistakes if you're writing on a black-/whiteboard in large letters.) Eventually, students would probably point out such an error (depending on the prof) and it would be corrected, but someone could have made a picture before. – Dubu Nov 16 '15 at 08:59
  • @Dubu but that student will need to be sneaky to snap it, right? In the case of OP, he asks him directly – Ooker Nov 16 '15 at 09:02
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    @Ooker, I doubt that the professor has such specific scenarios in mind. I think it's more of a case of caution in the face of uncertainty. Students and social media mix in unexpected ways, and when the damage is done, there's no going back. – Peter Bloem Nov 16 '15 at 11:09
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    Yes, it's not about a specific scenario or worrying that I'll write 2+2=5, it's the principle of the thing. Just like anyone else, I want to present to the world the most favorable image of myself, and @Ooker, I'm sure you do as well. For example, I see you selected a certain photo of yourself as your Twitter avatar, and not a different, much worse photo. Similarly, on the professional level, I am going to endorse the release online of certain materials I created (my papers), but not other materials (blackboard writings, and a poem I wrote when I was in the third grade). Simple as that. – Dan Romik Nov 16 '15 at 13:03
  • @DanRomik hmm, ok, I see your point. Yes, everyone wants to make the image of theirself beautiful. I think you can add that to make your answer more persuade. But I still don't understand why the professors are embarrass about their own product. The lecture may not represents their highest quality, but it's not bad enough to be embarrass. After all, it should have enough quality to be presented to the students, right? Similarly, my profile picture can be gorgeous, but if you catch a crazy picture, I wouldn't really mind that, because I have make sure that you can't see all the worst ones. – Ooker Nov 16 '15 at 13:13
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    @Ooker think about it as a game theory problem. If we assume all the professors are in a big competition called "academia," and some of them do not let blackboard pictures be released, then others, even if they might be otherwise okay with it, will also have to follow the same strategy if they want to remain competitive. In such a competitive environment one cannot afford even a small mistake or embarrassment. This toy model is of course an exaggeration of the real-life situation, but only a slight one. – Dan Romik Nov 16 '15 at 13:21
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    @Ooker also I think you are underestimating the difference in quality between something I create when I have time to work on it properly and am not simultaneously busy speaking to a classroom of 200 students (the "high cognitive load" I was referring to) and something created under haste and psychological pressure. It is a huge difference. So yes, the blackboard is good enough to present to the class (it has to be, what other choice is there?), but not good enough to present to the rest of the world, who will probably not appreciate the context in which the material was created. – Dan Romik Nov 16 '15 at 13:27
  • I think the last sentence is the key. Can you give me an example of that? I've never taught anyone so I may not have the experience. – Ooker Nov 16 '15 at 13:30
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    others, even if they might be otherwise okay with it, will also have to follow the same strategy if they want to remain competitive — ...except for those of us who are confident that our board work makes us look better than our competitors. – JeffE Nov 16 '15 at 16:17
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    @JeffE my point was that even the best blackboard writings usually do not compare well to more thoughtfully prepared material. But yes, for those rare individuals whose blackboards are amazingly neat, free of errors and written in beautiful calligraphic handwriting, your comment is correct and very much in the spirit of my game theory model. – Dan Romik Nov 16 '15 at 17:46
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    @DavidRicherby well, I am not an actor so can't speak authoritatively about why actors care about paparazzi. I'm sure invasion of privacy is a big component, but I'm equally sure protection of their brand name and public image are another big part of it. In fact, our human desire to control how others view us and think of us is probably a big reason why the notion of "privacy" even exists. – Dan Romik Nov 16 '15 at 17:49
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    @Dubu If students do start posting things like that, they should be none too surprised if Professors decide to post pictures of said student napping in class, with scholarly friends commenting on the laziness of math students. ;) Nobody likes to be seen at their worst. – Zibbobz Nov 16 '15 at 18:13
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    lectures being lowest quality type of content...that explains a few things – clueless Nov 16 '15 at 22:54
  • @chalkchewer okay, that's kind of funny, but joking aside, I did not say lectures are the lowest quality type of content, only that the blackboard scribblings had that property. Furthermore, my comparison was purely relative to other types of content, and "lowest quality" would still in many cases be pretty high quality on an absolute scale. So, I'm sorry if you had a bad professor who gave shitty lectures - it happens, and you would be right to complain and make jokes about it - but I think the joke in this case was a bit inappropriate and needlessly misrepresented what I said. – Dan Romik Nov 16 '15 at 23:08
  • @DanRomik blackboards are amazingly neat, free of errors and written in beautiful calligraphic handwriting — No, that's no more required than having every paper win a Nobel Prize, or even every paper appearing in Nature. You just need to be better than your competitors. That distribution has a very long tail. – JeffE Nov 17 '15 at 01:15
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    @DanRomik only that the blackboard scribblings had that property — [citation needed] I see your blackboard scribblings and raise you typical PowerPoint. (shudder) – JeffE Nov 17 '15 at 01:17
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    @JeffE good point, but as far as I'm concerned PowerPoint slides are such a low life form that I wouldn't (and don't) present them even non-publicly (obligatory XKCD reference)... – Dan Romik Nov 17 '15 at 01:31
  • The first sentence seems like you want to say that hand-writing on boards should have no place in teaching. – Raphael Nov 17 '15 at 23:02
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    @Raphael nothing could be further than the truth. What on earth gives you that impression? Blackboards absolutely have their place, and that place is precisely in the classroom (and one or two other places). In any case, if you want to debate this, let's focus on what I actually said, which is an objective question, rather than on what it "seems like I want to say", which apparently is highly subjective and easily subject to misinterpretation. – Dan Romik Nov 18 '15 at 04:11
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    Unless you are Gerry Sussman or Harold Abelson -- then you have it recorded live and published on videos and later served across the web to millions for decades on end, self-caught errors mid-sentence and all. Actually rather engaging, still today. – zxq9 Nov 18 '15 at 05:55
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    @DanRomik You said, "hastily [...], messy, unchecked, and prone to error" -- doesn't sound like an artifact you'd want to use in teaching. That said, I have experienced several lectures by professors who had excellent "blackboard scribbling" -- because they carefully prepared them beforehand, checked them (repeatedly, I guess) and arranged them clearly on the board. – Raphael Nov 18 '15 at 10:54
  • I'm surprised this answer has so many up-votes yet nobody mentioned the huge flaw in the actor analogy. Professors, while teaching, are performing to an audience who will formally judge them for a job they're being paid for. The elephant in the room (not always visible to undergrad students) is of course that because of how funding happens, most universities value the research efforts of professors more than their teaching efforts. – Fuhrmanator Nov 18 '15 at 15:43
  • @Fuhrmanator: I admit I'm just as surprised as you at the number of up-votes, but nonetheless I think the analogy with actors is a pretty good one, and manages to capture an essential feature of the psychology of the professors' refusal to allow release of their blackboard pictures. Of course, like all analogies it is not perfect and breaks down pretty quickly when you take a detailed look at the two situations in all their complexity. – Dan Romik Nov 18 '15 at 20:10
  • @DanRomik I think you've nailed the psychology, and that's why it's a popular answer. The analogy doesn't work for me because at the grocery store, actors are not working. Professors in the classroom are working, and therefore should be adequately prepared (it's not a good reason to ask students not to publish photos; it's an emotional insecurity based on lack of professionalism). The analogy (to me) takes away the professional responsibility of the professor. – Fuhrmanator Nov 18 '15 at 21:21
  • @Fuhrmanator: I see, and that's a good point. However, here is a point I tried to make several times in the comments, without much success: a professor can be coming to class very well prepared, can be doing an excellent job, and their blackboard still won't look as nice and clean and professional as a well written paper. It's simply an apples to oranges comparison: two different kinds of content, two different quality standards. So the psychological reasons I mentioned are still completely legitimate even for the best lecturers, and do not imply any insecurity or lack of professionalism. – Dan Romik Nov 19 '15 at 03:38
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    @DanRomik Your last comment makes sense, but it's quite different than what you wrote in your answer: "hastily created under time pressure and at a time of high cognitive load, messy, unchecked, and prone to error." I read that as inadequate preparation, so it might explain the confusion people are having. – Fuhrmanator Nov 19 '15 at 04:01
  • @Fuhrmanator great point, thanks a lot. I feel a bit stupid for not realizing this sooner. I've now edited my post adding a clarification of this point, hopefully that will clear up the confusion. – Dan Romik Nov 19 '15 at 06:53
  • Where though do these professors learn this practice? E.g. if I someday became a professor, and I hadn't stumbled upon this site, where would this practice enter? – The_Sympathizer Feb 01 '17 at 10:22
  • @mike3 I'm confused by your question. What practice? – Dan Romik Feb 01 '17 at 16:12
  • @DanRomik the simpler answer is that everyone will have bad days. However well prepared you are, however carefully you have organized the material, there are days when nothing goes right because any one of a 1000 possible small things went wrong, and the final product looks nothing like what was intended. – ZeroTheHero Oct 17 '21 at 01:50
  • @DanRomik Very good answer; EXTREMELY WELL EXPLAINED. Yes. I know, I use the comment section to convey a simple thank you. I am aware of that. have it great //wishes from Sweden. Thanks once more for the brilliant answer! – William Martens Oct 30 '22 at 10:06
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Several explanations are possible:

  • Their blackboard scribblings are their copyrighted material, so they have every right to restrict distribution. I.e., written "for my students only".
  • What ends up on the blackboard is just a part of the class, explanations, questions and answers, on-the-fly examples, reiteration of a missed point is an integral part of teaching. All that doesn't show up, so the result isn't really complete, and probably less than useful on its own.
  • They don't want to get exposed publicly with stuff somewhat sloppily written on-the-fly, badly organized, with little (or no) possibility of checking/editing, and (probably worse) no careful citing of sources.
  • They are secretly writing a textbook, and don't want to get their scoop stolen by a "pirate blackboard" version on the 'net ;-)
vonbrand
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    Could the last point really happen? I mean, yes, it can be in theory, but I don't think a collection of pictures taken from the board could ever replace a book. And if they really need to be secret, then they won't let the students take pictures at the first time. – Ooker Nov 16 '15 at 06:25
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    @Ooker, see the smiley... – vonbrand Nov 16 '15 at 09:27
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    @Oooker probably not in math or science, but in the humanities where content in classes is much less standardized, this perhaps might be more of a concern. Still doubtful. – WetlabStudent Nov 16 '15 at 22:57
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    @Ooker In mathematics I have known many professors to base their books off of their lectures, or to give lectures based off of tenative drafts of a book. The book is meant to be educational and used in classes, so it makes sense to field test it and see how it goes. A significant proportion of my math texts contain forwards by the author mentioning the classes that were taught with early versions of the text, and thanking the classes (sometimes even specific students) for their feedback and help in improving the book. – zibadawa timmy Nov 17 '15 at 02:11
  • @zibadawatimmy but in that case, my point still hold, is that right? – Ooker Nov 17 '15 at 06:11
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    When I began teaching, point #3 would have been the biggest reason I wouldn't have wanted my students to publish images of my blackboards. After 15 years of teaching I got over that insecurity because my preparation is much better. – Fuhrmanator Nov 18 '15 at 15:50
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I think your question a bit naïve. Once you find yourself in the same situation as your professors, the answer will be obvious.

Just imagine that a junior student comes to you and asks you for some help, say, with a difficult math problem. Would you help him? I suppose you would. Most people would if they have the time and expertise. You'd spend an hour with him, hopefully solve the problem and explain the solution to him.

Now imagine that the same student tells you that he is going to publish all the notes and scribblings you make while you are working together on this problem. Anyone will be able to find them if they search for your name. It will be available on the internet, likely forever. You will have no control over it whatsoever, as you aren't even the one who published them. You won't be able to correct it if you find a mistake. It will contribute against your professional reputation, but if some stranger criticizes the notes, calls them wrong or hard to understand and useless, you will not have a chance to defend, clarify or correct them. It is not at all the same as when you were explaining the solution to your friend and you were having a discussion with him.

Would you still help this student if you knew he was going to publish the whole discussion? Maybe you wouldn't. Or maybe you would but you would only agree to publishing the notes if you get the chance to carefully correct and polish them, to make sure it is suitable for a general audience with whom you cannot engage interactively, and that you would have some control over where and how the notes get published so you can update them in the future if necessary. Of course preparing these notes is going to take a lot more time than the one hour discussion you'd need to explain the solution to just this one student. So you might easily decide that you don't have the time for such an endeavour.

Szabolcs
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    +1 ... and those are also good reasons for not disclosing real names when one publish half-thought answers in sites like SE :) – Dr. belisarius Nov 17 '15 at 03:28
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    I would say that there is a risk to have them published without permission, but it's not large. No one wants to go to page 10 of Google. – Ooker Nov 17 '15 at 06:24
  • "Just imagine that a junior student comes to you and asks you for some help" -- and it would be great if they brought a picture of my blackboard! Did I miswrite or they misread? – Raphael Nov 17 '15 at 23:03
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    @Raphael That's not public sharing though. – Szabolcs Nov 18 '15 at 07:51
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As a professor, I want the class experience to be dynamic. If students had access to the content on the board, they might think it unnecessary to show up.

Also, writing notes results in a higher retention of information than just reading them (or typing them). http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

Fuhrmanator
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    Dynamism is critical, finding a way to "add value" beyond static books or PDFs. Pre-fabbed overheads, or pre-determined notes to be copied onto a black/white-board, tend to dampen that, despite the possibility of huge live audio supplements, which (bad-miraculously) many students seem to disregard and discard. But/and the students leap to presumptive conclusions about the "freshness" of the audio, too, while being to disregard it. Thus, I actually tend to think in terms of a sort of (highly informed, hopefully expert, hopefully fluid) improvisation and responsiveness... – paul garrett Nov 16 '15 at 23:59
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    If your lectures truly add value to the slides, then why are you afraid of students not showing up? – Livings Nov 18 '15 at 07:14
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    @Livings I personally am OK with students taking photos of the board. I minimize time lecturing and don't show much in terms of slides in class. Board information is usually answers to exercises that the groups do in class. Plenty of students will find any justification not to come, but some might be more motivated if all the info is not available outside. – Fuhrmanator Nov 18 '15 at 12:29
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    they might think it unnecessary to show up — So let them not show up. What's the problem? – JeffE Nov 18 '15 at 13:46
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    @JeffE Why not ask that question formally so you can get answers from the community? – Fuhrmanator Nov 18 '15 at 15:13
  • Sorry, my comment was snarky b/c I hated lectures myself. But I've also fought classes where hardly any students ever showed up, because they were lazy(not enough space to explain, but we had other classes for comparison). In the end, you get blamed for the lazyness of your students, so it makes sense, even if out of self preservation. If they all fail, next year you have twice as many students. Would have been the right thing to teach them a lesson, though. – Livings Nov 19 '15 at 05:19
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In addition to the reasons given in the other answers, your professors will probably teach the same class again in a year or two and they don't want the next batch of students to have access to all the notes. There are good reasons for this:

Firstly, students could use past lecture notes to cheat on problem sets and exams. This could happen because next year the professor switches the example he or she went over in class with a homework problem. Or the professor might go over solutions to homework in class.

Secondly, if students have access to the lecture notes from previous years, they might decide not to come to class (or come and not pay attention). The usual student reasoning is ``I don't need to go to class, because I have access to all the information already.'' Unfortunately, those students end up doing poorly, because lecture notes don't adequately compensate for not coming to class. So sharing lecture notes with the next batch of students can be doing them a disservice.

user44416
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    Professors do not need to have a reason, but both of the reasons you gave are bad. – emory Nov 16 '15 at 13:32
  • @emory Right, I would downvote if I had the reputation for that. The question is about taking photographs vs making notes on paper, while none of the points of this answer make a difference here. Both points would apply equally to notes taken on paper. – anderas Nov 16 '15 at 13:53
  • Many universities have policies against posting written notes on the internet or selling copies of written notes. – Noah Snyder Nov 16 '15 at 14:27
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    There are good reasons for this — Maybe so, but you haven't given any. College students are adults; if they want to rob themselves of the education they've paid for, that's their right. – JeffE Nov 16 '15 at 16:23
  • Many of my courses paid a student to type up the lecture nodes. Those were very helpful for learning. – CodesInChaos Nov 16 '15 at 16:28
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    @emory why bad? I have seen a lecturer taught with PowerPoint. She moved the slides so fast that no one can script it down, and she refused to give the slides to students for this exact reasons. – Ooker Nov 17 '15 at 06:32
  • @Ooker (1) So her slides contain the answers to next years homework assignments? As a student, I am allowed to photograph them, but I may not publicly distribute them. I'll tell my frat brothers they are not for public distribution. The frat will keep distribution private. (2) If I can learn the material without attending lecture, I should be able to test out. This is a good thing. – emory Nov 17 '15 at 10:05
  • I don't understand the downvotes. There are definitely professors who think this way. Whether you agree with those professors is not relevant. – Thomas Nov 17 '15 at 16:23
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One of the ways I find it helpful to think about questions like this is to ask "What's the benefit of the reverse happening?" Lets say that the professor not only allows you to take a photograph of the notes, but to share them online. What benefit is there?

Even leaving aside things like errors propagating through the notes, allowing the notes to exist online just lets a lesser form of their lecture notes (the blackboard, absent any context or the lecture itself) out into the world. What purpose does that serve? Who really benefits from it?

There are numerous downsides to it (as other people have discussed), and the upsides are pretty fleeting - at best, you could argue that the current class would be freed from taking notes, but many people prefer to take notes, and this creates a dependence that your camera, picture taking skills, and hosting will always be available and adequate to their needs.

Basically, ask yourself: "Why should they?"

Fomite
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I agree that, as in other answers and comments, faculty might not want "unedited, unengineered, live" performances to be recorded and exist forever on the introwebs.

At the same time, the "added value" (supposedly beyond books, Wiki, on-line stuff, even my own on-line notes produced for the very class itself) I aim to provide is something (I fancy...) cannot be captured by just "screen capture" of the blackboard, any more than a video without audio of a stage play would "be the play". Ok, so then a video+audio recording (I think they call these "movies") would maybe capture everything... just as movies do. Or video DVDs of orchestras playing music, as though that might substitute for "going to a concert".

In many ways, these substitutes are excellent. Cheaper, for sure. So one should ask about in what way, if any, they lack. That is, instead of worrying so much about prohibition of "pirated" videos of my lectures, I should ask myself what, if anything, I'm offering that these recordings don't capture...

Answer: not so much that very many people would care about. ("Oh, those silly people...")

For such reasons, I refused to be video-taped giving some popular courses of mine some years ago, when the university did not agree to give me sufficient IP (intellectual property) rights to not have my recordings replace me in my job... :)

The relevance of this ranting to the question is that many professors reasonably worry (whether or not they're good teachers at various levels) that their university or department will seek to replace them with cheap simulacra... possibly even just recordings of themselves... as I do suspect... and even tangentially related things are instinctively resisted, even if they're almost non-sequiturs.

In particular, unlike what even bad actors can expect, there are no "residuals" for replays of math videos. Maybe in the future. For the moment, "tenure" is the closest thing? :)

paul garrett
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Any and all materials produced in a lecture are covered by copyright, intellectual property, and student conduct/academic integrity policies.

Materials for students available in university classes are not 'public' materials, and distribution of materials outside of the classroom goes against the policy, and may/may not be subjugated to copyright infringement law. Otherwise, why go to university if you get the education for free?

Technically, notes and other materials from units should not be reposted in any manner 'to help the next student' in accordance with these policies. It's a very grey area, however.

To give an example of when it happens and it's not so grey, I found an assessment of mine earlier this year (word for word, including tips on how to do the assessment well, and what the assessment marking criteria is) all over paid essay writing websites, with attached codes pertaining to the subject of my unit.

postagepaid
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    There are various ways to get a free college education, but simply looking at photos of blackboards is hardly going to be effective, it seems to me. – Dronz Nov 16 '15 at 05:21
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    From my university days, I remember studying the Central Limit Theorem. Are you saying that I can not use it anymore because it was my professor's intellectual property. I am already in enough trouble as it is by using grammar I learned in English class. – emory Nov 16 '15 at 13:34
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    Are you saying that I can not use it anymore because it was my professor's intellectual property — Now you're just being silly. Of course you can use the ideas presented in your professors' lectures; ideas cannot be copyrighted. But you can't post video of their lectures to YouTube; expression of those ideas is copyrighted. – JeffE Nov 16 '15 at 16:20
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One additional point I haven't noticed above: at certain institutions (including mine), the copyright of the professors' teaching materials (including, strictly, their writing) does not solely belong to them: it belongs to the institution as well.

The logic behind this is as follows: the university pays the professor to create course material. However, the course itself (and the material) belongs to the university. The expression of that material depends on the professor, so they have a say in its use (I believe "performance rights" is the phrase). However, it remains the university's material.

This also explains why nobody worries about a student making open their notes on the course: the student's notes are their interpretation of the material, not that which was produced as a work for hire.

Ian
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  • the copyright of the professors' teaching materials (including, strictly, their writing) does not solely belong to them: it belongs to the institution as well. -1, totally false AFAIK –  Nov 17 '15 at 01:39
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    @Ben Ian says this about "certain institutions, including mine" - are you asserting that this is not true at any institution, even Ian's? Hard to see how you could know that. – ff524 Nov 17 '15 at 02:12
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    Whilst I cannot find a public link to my own institution's policy, it is similar to this policy from the University of Glasgow. Note the quote "The University owns IP generated by University staff in the course of or incidental to their employment, including teaching or university materials." – Ian Nov 17 '15 at 08:51
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This is not a comprehensive answer, but it's too long for a comment. There are many possible reasons why professors would say this, but the one that I suspect is the most important is the following.

Many professors, as well as the schools that employ them, want to maintain the fiction that lecturing is a reasonable method of instruction in the year 2015. Lecturing originated in an era when books were too expensive for most individuals to own, so professors would read the book out loud, and students would copy down the words with a quill pen in order to have their own copy. This is a silly thing to do in 2015, and empirical evidence shows that for a variety of subjects, lecturing is not an effective way to teach, compared to the alternatives: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/05/08/1319030111 .

The trouble is that it would be inconvenient for professors and their employers to admit this. At big schools, it's very cost-effective to herd 300 students into an auditorium to watch a professor give a canned powerpoint presentation. Students also tend to uncritically accept lecturing as the normal mode of instruction, and often they dislike the alternatives, which would force them to prepare for class, play an active role, or risk having other people see them be wrong about something. And for professors, it's easy to deliver the same canned lecture year after year. "We pretend to teach, you pretend to learn."

If professors who use lecturing as their sole mode of instruction allowed their lectures to be posted for free on the internet, they would encounter an existential crisis. There would be no reason for them to keep showing up in person, semester after semester, and there would be no reason for their students to show up for class.

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    Yet many professors post lecture slides on the Internet, and as far as I know this practice has not led to any "existential crisis." – ff524 Nov 17 '15 at 02:08
  • @ff524: Good point, but here are two things to consider: (1) We may have already had the existential crisis, but we go on pretending that we haven't, because it's convenient for all concerned -- an "emperor's new clothes" scenario. (2) Do you know that the professors you refer to use lecturing as their sole mode of instruction? –  Nov 17 '15 at 04:24
  • @ff524 It is actually slowly eroding attendance yes. Anyway i would love to do inverted classroon stuff but students want time wasting lectures. Because it does not demand them to participate. – joojaa Nov 17 '15 at 08:04
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    "Lecturing originated in an era when books were too expensive for most individuals to own" -- considering the ridiculous pricing of textbooks maybe that era will be returning. – KCd Nov 18 '15 at 02:30
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    want to maintain the fiction that lecturing is a reasonable method of instruction in the year 2015 — That's because lecturing is a reasonable method of instruction in the year 2015. (It's not the only reasonable method, of course.) Over the last decade, I've posted about a thousand pages of lecture notes and other course materials, and about a hundred hours of lecture videos, all freely accessible on the internet. Nevertheless, most of my students still come to class. The trick is not to deliver the same canned lecture year after year. – JeffE Nov 18 '15 at 13:44
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First, thanks for having the courtesy to ask for permission.

I think there are a couple of other things to consider:

  1. Since all the professors answered the same way, there may be a department or university policy regarding posting content online.

  2. "Harm" is relative to the individual and the situation. It could be financial, artistic, or social. At the end of the day, the content belongs to the professor and the university and they determine the usage.

  3. Class notes are your interpretation of the knowledge disseminated in class. They are meant for personal use. When you post them online, veracity and/or plagiarism become your responsibility.

Jesuisme
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It seems that they do not want to be held to any mistakes, accidental plagiarism or misattribution, or inadequate explanations that they wrote during class.

Also, they may view publishing itself as a process of 'quality control' that lecture doesn't offer. Also in some fields there is a fear of being 'beaten to the punch' if something you are working on is made available before it is complete. Ideas are intellectual property and there is a fear of that property being stolen or unfairly adopted. Publication leaves a paper trail to resolve any potential disputes, so they tend to be avoided all together.

zga
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    Would you not say that the ideas shared in a classroom are being openly shared to the people in the classroom? Are there really classrooms where there are restrictions on the use or sharing of ideas learned in class? – Dronz Nov 16 '15 at 05:25
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    Undergraduate lectures are rarely at the bleeding edge of current research so I don't think your second paragraph really applies. – David Richerby Nov 16 '15 at 08:25
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    IOW, if Professor Z misexplains a theorem in class and I apply the theorem as incorrectly explained on an exam and lose marks, I should suffer the penalty in silence. The second paragraph is complete rubbish. My time stamped images of Professor Z's blackboard are just further proof of Professor Z's timeline. – emory Nov 16 '15 at 13:37
  • Ideas are intellectual property — No. They are not. The expression of ideas is intellectual property. – JeffE Nov 16 '15 at 16:24