<p>A tutor at Harvard has created a new tool-- finalsclub.org-- not unlike the MIT open courseware program, except on this site, students provide the content and collaborate on specific courses. It's worth a look now, especially if you're worried about the study tools available to you while at Harvard. </p>
<p>But why is it called finalsclub.org? That is a weird and misleading name, given the school it’s starting at.</p>
<p>I think it’s a play on the idea that many students think that a “finals club” has to do with final exams, rather than the truth that a “final club” is just the last club that a student would join. I agree that it’s silly, but also somewhat funny.</p>
<p>An interesting idea that’s rather impractical. Certain course contents are subject to author copyright and simply cannot be released, so how is the site going to keep track of it all? What’s more, students won’t be able to pay or get the required proper licensing for public sharing.</p>
<p>There’s also the issue of privacy release: if someone is videotaped in course lecture video without prior knowledge, can he objects to the video being published publicly? Lawsuit waiting to happen. It’s also going to blur the lines of what constitutes plagiarism: if someone uploads the past exams for a class and I, before taking the same class, go up there and download it all, is that academic dishonesty? (Hey, I didn’t know the school will recycle the tests!) What about homework problems?</p>
<p>To prevent the uploading of these kinds of sensitive materials you would need heavy moderation of the site, which requires manpower and money that a start up company won’t have. It’ll need even more moderation than the OpenCourseWare because this one is allowing random parties to access and modify the site. The MIT OCW runs on public donation and university funds, requiring at least tens of thousands of dollars per course. You would need to have a large start up fund before you can even think of setting up a site good enough to receive monetary support.</p>
<p>And lastly, it’s just naive to assume that students from all different universities will actively volunteer to take the time to put up their notes. You’ll also need a way to ensure accuracy of the published material in order for the site to assume any validity: how can you even moderate the site to ensure that “notes” supposedly for a class is actually for a class? Intentionally falsified or inaccurate notes does more harm than good.</p>