It’s 9:30 a.m. and class started a half hour ago. Panicked, I realize I have nowhere to get the notes, and test files for the class are nowhere to be found. I’m screwed.

Or maybe not, thanks to GradeGuru.com.

GradeGuru, which launched in 2008, is a notes sharing website that lets college students upload their notes and papers to the site after they create a free account. Students from any university can then get notes from the student-formed database for free.

Take good notes and earn some cash. Photo by justin on Flickr, licensed under the creative commons.

Site founder Emily Sawtell says the idea came from her interest in education. The site’s purpose, she says, is to give students tools to enhance the study methods they already use.

Finding notes on the site is easy. There are three search methods: by school, by course or by topic. An advanced search is also available when looking for a more specific set of notes. As soon as someone has submitted their notes, their university is added to the list of universities with content posted.

But what’s the big deal when it is easy to ask a classmate or professor for lecture notes?

Each time a student uploads their own notes, and each time someone else uses those notes, a points reward based on the notes’ quality and how often they are used is put into a Paypal account. Students can convert the points into money or other items from the site’s reward partners.

Weinberg freshman Bo Cisek thinks the site would be useful. “Some people would use the site to not go to class, but other people would use it to actually help them with their work,” he says.

As of now, Northwestern has no contributions to the site, but Sawtell feels that it won’t be long until the first upload. “We are finding that students at one school are telling their friends at other schools and our member base and content database is growing through that kind of word of mouth,” she says.

Making original material available to anyone seems risky, but the site is careful about stating their policy on plagiarism and has their “Community Standards” easily accessible on the site.

“Because we are being funded by a large educational company (McGraw-Hill), academic ethics are vital and a crucial concern for us,” Sawtell said. “If students are willing to share their notes, then we wanted to make sure…that other students were only using them correctly.”

The site is monitored by Turnitin, which scans documents for plagiarism.

Feedback so far has been positive. Sawtell says that students have written in that sharing notes online makes them take more careful notes. The incentive for submitting quality notes acts as motivation.

So far, only one instance has prompted an ethical red flag. “One student uploaded notes before a moderator could check them and a university called and wanted them removed… I don’t think it was a problem because they weren’t on the site that long,” Sawtell said.

However, Medill Media Ethics Professor Loren Ghiglione says he doesn’t feel the site serves a necessary purpose.

Ghiglione says that if a student were to miss his class, he or she should feel comfortable approaching another student or himself to ask for the notes. “I really don’t think there is a need for McGraw-Hill to get in the middle of my relationships with my students.”

With the appearance of this website, the future of note-taking is uncertain. Will people feel a need to take notes anymore, or will they just use the hard work of others for free?

SparkNotes, which Ghiglione equated with GradeGuru, has not eliminated the need to read books. GradeGuru intends to help students with classes in a similar way to how SparkNotes helps them understand literature. But not every student will adhere to the site’s intended purpose.

As Ghiglione says, the site is there and he can’t stop students from using it. The Community Standards outline appropriate use, and it is up to students to use the content ethically. The numbers posted on the home page indicate that the site only continues to grow. As long as there are students willing to use the site, Sawtell says, students will keep posting, and more universities will continue to get involved. Northwestern could very well be next.