The rise of platforms like Course Hero and Chegg is no surprise as online learning continues to grow at a rapid rate.
Both students and teachers now leverage these platforms to access their ever-increasing portfolio of learning resources.
While the concept of sharing notes and ideas, books or even helping others understand or answer a question is nothing new, these platforms facilitate the process.
Instead of going out to meet a classmate to help explain a concept or to collect some notes on a concept, these platforms exist to make this easier for students.
This has led to the growth of these platforms leading to additional features that include getting an expert to solve a problem or even getting one-on-one.
Although students find these platforms invaluable, the success of these platforms can sometimes be seen as avenues for cheating to concerned parties.
This article will provide insight into some relevant questions students may have including any concerns about Course Hero notifying institutions in the event a student uses this platform.
Course Hero is an online platform that enables students to access educational resources including notes, questions, answers, tutors, and more.
Although the general premise of the platform and its necessity is easy to understand, some educational institutions and teachers have expressed their concerns as students leveraging this platform can easily access uploaded homework or get 3rd-party support.
While this is true, the general purpose of the platform is to leverage the global community of tutors and students to aid students in their course work.
Unfortunately, like any platform meant for good, this platform can be used to cheat in assignments which leads to concerns from concerned stakeholders.
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While Course Hero can be used for free, users would need to upload or post 40 materials to get a month’s worth of free usage. However, most users opt for a subscription package as that provides instant access to the platform and resources.
Students or users can sign up for the platform free but can only gain access to resources on subscribing or uploading the outlined number of materials to the platform.
While the free option can be inconvenient, uploading 40 materials will guarantee a month’s worth of platform usage.
Most users however resort to the subscription packages which range from monthly to annual subscriptions.
Users can then gain access to resources including videos, notes, questions, textbook answers, problems, and even join study groups to share ideas.
You can also post questions and receive help from peers and tutors on the platform while staying anonymous as Course Hero automatically generates an editable username for each user.
No. While Course Hero encourages and expects users to adhere to a strict honor code, it does not notify any schools of student usage as the platform is designed to serve as a study aid for students.
User data is confidential and Course Hero enables anonymity by assigning unique and editable usernames to each respective user.
That said, users should keep in mind that Course Hero is an online database crawled by various content crawlers including plagiarism checkers.
It is worth noting that Course Hero content is mostly user-generated which presents the issue of quality answers.
Freelancers on the platform may not exactly be experts in any specific field and may end up providing inaccurate contributions to the platform.
Some teachers even resort to providing answers on the platform tweaked to facilitate the identification of any students who simply copied the answers without even paraphrasing or trying to understand the content.
Although Course Hero does not notify schools of student registration, teachers can identify cheaters if any copied content is submitted without paraphrasing.
Online education resource platforms like Course Hero are readily accessible to most premium plagiarism checkers including TurnItIn.
These plagiarism checkers not only check against Google index but also specific online resources and their own libraries.
Course Hero’s honor code also clearly states that they intentionally allow such platforms to crawl their resources.
It is therefore advisable to use the resources available on these platforms as study materials that can guide you better understand your lessons and assignments.
The dangers of getting caught cheating outweigh the benefits. It’s therefore advisable to use the content as intended instead of simply copy-pasting and submitting it to your institution.
That simply leads to some form of punishment for breaching your institution’s code of academic integrity.
Course Hero, Chegg, and other educational resource platforms can be used in the right way that won’t lead to a breach in academic integrity.
Studying requires finding the necessary resources outside the immediate resource provided by your teacher.
With the availability of platforms like Course Hero, students can now find extensive notes by other students from different parts of the world, giving them a broader perspective of the subject matter.
Instead of simply copying an answer simply to submit as your own, it would be better to leverage the resources to gain a better understanding of the content and then submit an assignment based on your understanding.
While some teachers would argue against using paraphrasing as a student, it’s still useful to avoid getting flagged for plagiarism.
Paraphrasing tools are great resources especially when you’ve been presented with content that’s difficult to understand.
Unfortunately, these tools are also available to the general public leading to the possibility of other students presenting similar if not the same assignment.
The recommended approach is to read through the assignment and paraphrase using your own words. While this approach would take some time, it has the added advantage of providing the student some level of understanding of the content or assignment.
When properly done, the user could also end up with a very unique answer especially if they leverage other resources in their answers.
Note that while some may be higher, most online schools would penalize a student for a plagiarism index higher than 30%.
Individual assignments can be rough especially when you’re having difficulties properly understanding the concepts or even knowing your completed assignment is right.
Course Hero can be used to help students verify their assignments and subsequently make any necessary corrections where necessary.
Course Hero tutors and community can provide students with some direction as to how to solve a particular problem they’re experiencing in their assignment or lesson.
While class teachers may not have enough time to answer any questions presented by students, Course Hero tutors would be willing to do this especially since monetary compensation is involved.
Yes. Copy-pasted information from Course Hero can easily be identified by plagiarism checkers which crawl Course Hero. It is advisable to use Course Hero as a resource and paraphrasing should be used when submitting Course Hero content.
Submitting information readily available on Course Hero constitutes cheating and a breach of academic integrity which can result in probation, suspension, or even expulsion.
No, universities can’t track Course Hero usage as user information is only kept in the company’s database. That said, assignments and content, simply copied and pasted for submission will be flagged for plagiarism by the University’s plagiarism checker.