Student Disability Services (SDS), in partnership with Flashnotes.com, is introducing Clemson University students to a peer-to-peer learning platform that will allow SDS the opportunity to ensure more than 400 students with the accommodation for a note taker can be served confidentially online.
All students accessing Flashnotes.com will have access to supplemental notes that will help enhance their learning experiences. Professors faced with finding a note-taker for students with the accommodation will have a forum for referring individuals to the online service.
“There’s really an opportunity for all students to benefit here,” said Arlene Stewart, director of Student Disability Services. “Flashnotes.com will provide a means to enhance a student’s listening and learning skills while assisting students with documented disabilities to gain access to an accommodation.
“And, because of Flashnotes.com, we are moving toward a more user-friendly means of providing professors with a way to ensure students with disabilities will likely have greater access to notes.”
Flashnote.com, a student-to-student study materials marketplace, entered into a partnership with SDS that allows SDS to recruit and retain note-takers. SDS will recruit volunteers to upload their notes to Flashnotes.com where their notes will be made available free for students with a registered disability. At the same time, the notes will be available for sale at a price set by the volunteer through Flashnotes.com to a broad market.
“At Clemson, we also recognize the need for a professor-driven learning model that also empowers students to use additional external resources available in order to achieve the required course objectives,” Stewart said. “Additional features of this service include the potential for student-generated video presentations and strategies for taking notes.”
According to Mike Matousek, founder of Flashnotes, the online marketplace came about in a statistics class in which other students struggled to understand the complex material.
Because he excelled in the course, classmates often asked for his study guides. He quickly realized there was a need for student-created study material in order to help his classmates – and students at other schools – perform their best.
“I’m so excited the Student Disability Services office has agreed to bring this new opportunity to students at Clemson University. Students who take the extra time to create detailed study materials can be rewarded for their hard work, while students who might be struggling now have a new means to improve their understanding of the material,” said Matousek. “Flashnotes.com is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So whether the student needs extra help during a late night study session or wants to start their day off by finding a helpful study guide, he/she always has access to the assistance they need.
“One of the reasons I started the company was because I recognized that a one-size-fits-all method of teaching does not take into account the broadening number of diverse learning styles across all students and curricula.”
According to the Flashnotes.com website, students are making an average of $31 an hour by selling their study materials on the site. Students are allowed to set the price of their study materials – which average at around $8 – and take home 70 percent of each sale.
The Flashnotes.com team will be working closely with Clemson’s administration and faculty to track note-taking and ensure students are only selling their own notes and original study materials. Internally at Flashnotes.com, all new study materials are also reviewed to ensure no violation of copyright laws or cheating, and the company adheres to strict Digital Millennium Copyright Act compliance. And if for any reason a Clemson student is dissatisfied with their purchase, the site will issue a full refund – no questions asked – and immediately review the material in question.
Students interested in learning more about how working through the Flashnotes.com platform and offering notes to students with disabilities, can contact Arlene Stewart, SDS director, or Dede Norungolo at 864-656-6848 or by email: SDS-L@clemson.edu. According to Flashnotes.com, study materials on the website are currently available at 1,600 colleges and universities across the country.
