Unveiled last week, a new Web site service called Knetwit will serve as a networking site for students and professors who want to upload their class notes, papers and other resources for others to use.
The social networking and information-sharing site is free to join and use, and the more a person’s material gets downloaded, the more points a student earns to be redeemed for cash or merchandise from the Knetwit store.
The creators of the site, Benjamin Wald and Tyler Jenks, call Knetwit “knowledge-based social networking,” and Wald said it takes social networking one step further. They have already spent $3 million, which they received from selling their first company, on their platform encouraging students, professors and other academics to make their knowledge available to the rest of the world, while also getting a little something extra.
“There are a lot of reasons, extrinsic and intrinsic, that people post or upload information online,” Wald said. “Some people are competitive, want to be part of community, [are] contributing to greater good ... but we pay students to be extremely powerful.”
Wald said the inspiration for the site came when Jenks was traveling abroad in Italy and needed help studying for his final exams. Left in a foreign country with a language barrier, Wald said Jenks grew frustrated with the fact that he had no resources to help connect to other students who could help him.
“To make a long story, short,” Wald said, “Jenks realized we live in a connected world but there’s no platform to ... connect students and professors” with one another.
For Assoc. Commerce Prof. Brad Brown, this is just another door to the free flow of information; the idea of connecting students and professors fits well with the intent of higher education in general.
“The point of education[al] institutions is to diffuse knowledge, and I don’t see any problem with that,” Brown said.
Third-year College student Rowena Clima also saw benefits to the Web site, saying it could be useful if she ever missed a day of lecture and she needed notes.
“I would take it as another resource,” she said. “I think the whole point of the University is to learn, and learning involves sharing.”
Politics Prof. Michael Smith, on the other hand, said he believes the site could tread upon the line of infringement of intellectual property because professors speak to students in their own classrooms, not to the rest of the world.
“I encourage the students in my classes to share notes and ideas all the time, but this Web site seems to me to commercialize this cooperative learning, and I find that troubling,” Smith said. “I am also concerned that my ideas, communicated to my students in class, will be used essentially to earn points and money on a for-profit Web site.”
Wald said he thinks that a student’s notes are an interpretation of what a professor says, so that does not infringe on a professor’s intellectual property.
“That said, a professor’s course absolutely is his intellectual property,” Wald said, “and I suggest they post it on Knetwit and start making money off of it too.”
For Assoc. Politics Prof. David Waldner, it is not the idea of posting notes from his lectures that bothers him so much has how this site could affect the classroom environment.
“I consider anything I say to be public property, I suppose,” Waldner said. “If I say it, it’s out there — I want people to know it. I’m more interested in whether students would use this system instead of going to lecture.”
Waldner said the site could be used as a supplemental study aid to students, but it should never serve as a replacement for going to class.
Some University students might not be able to use the network as a study aid if their professors view it as breaking the honor code.
If a student were to use resources from Knetwit for a class where the professor does not allow outside aid, the student could be brought up on honor charges, Honor Committee Chair Jess Huang explained. She added that it would be up to the jury to decide whether the incident was indeed a violation. Huang said she encourages students to talk with their professors before using Knetwit and other similar networks.
Read More
Halfway there — a progress report of U.Va.’s 2030 Plan
By Vyshnavi Tatta | 16 hours agoWith goals such as housing all second-years on Grounds, becoming the number one public university in the nation and establishing the University as a leader in 21st-century research and education, the 2030 Plan is robust and ambitious.
From the archives: Jan. 27 – Feb. 2
By Finn Trainer and Clara Franklin | 19 hours agoStudents who participated in a University-sponsored study abroad program in the Soviet Union over winter break recounted their experiences, which included visits to Moscow and Leningrad.
Student Council hears from University Student Legal Services Attorney
By Lauren Seeliger | YesterdayStudent Council also discussed the Spring Activities Fair taking place in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom Jan. 27 from 5 - 8 p.m.
