Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis '68 says Harvard's rules have been on the books for decades, possibly since the 1930s. "Selling lecture notes actually is not a new concept," Lewis says. "As is often the case, the World Wide Web is just an enabling technology for an old practice."

At the beginning of the year, when Versity was recruiting students to take notes for its pages, the Freshman Dean's Office issued a memo warning first-years about companies selling notes, says Nathans.

"The reasons behind [the rule], I suspect, have to do with wanting students to take full responsibility for their own work, and to become engaged as fully in each course as possible," says Senior Associate Registrar Thurston Smith. "It is not difficult for me to imagine that students who go to every class and take their own notes will be more involved in the courses they take."

Notes You Can Trust?

Disciplinary risks aside, professors warn students that the notes may not prove helpful--or even accurate.

Professors whose notes appear on the site say the published notes are generally of poor quality.

Versity executives contacted the anonymous note-takers, but report that they refused to comment.

James E. Davis, Senior Lecturer on Chemistry and Chemical Biology and on Molecular and Cellular Biology, says the notes online from his chemistry class contained "two humongous errors." He held up a copy of the Versity notes on his Introduction to the Principles of Chemistry class in one of his lectures recently.