Can a Critic of Edtech Change a Controversial Homework-Help Site From the Inside?


Sean Michael Morris is aware of that he has cultivated a sure “ethos” over his profession in larger schooling—as a self-described critic of edtech and a champion of serving to professors enhance their educating.

So he was not shocked when his newest job change led to a firestorm of criticism on educational Twitter and social media this week. The information: He left his job at the University of Colorado at Denver to change into an govt at Course Hero, a controversial homework-help website derided by many professors.

The firm he’s becoming a member of, valued at more than $3.6 billion dollars, takes pains to argue that it forbids its customers from downloading supplies off the website for the function of dishonest, or to add solutions to homework or exams. But in actuality, each of these issues occur routinely. As an official guide for students at one other University of Colorado campus notes: “One of the big problems with Course Hero is that if a student wants to cheat, the website offers all the tools they need to do so. It provides a temptation to students who are looking for exam answers and want to cheat in class.”

To some fellow teachers, the Course Hero vibe is just at odds with Morris’ ethos and philosophy.

Morris says he has lengthy been devoted to providing a “critique” of edtech. “My focus has primarily been on things like learning management systems and proctoring services and plagiarism-detection services and that sort of thing,” he advised EdSurge this week. “Because I feel like they have, they directly interfere with the educational process.”

We wished to higher perceive what Morris’ function at Course Hero entails, and why he took the gig. So we requested for an interview, and he was recreation (although the firm stipulated that we ship a recording of the interview to them after it was over, presumably to protect in opposition to any misquoting.)

The job at Course Hero shall be full time, and so Morris not solely left his college job, however he additionally will step apart as director of the Digital Pedagogy Lab, which runs an annual occasion to assist professors enhance their educating. That lab will proceed as earlier than, and Morris plans to be concerned, however not as director, he says. He may even step again from energetic work on the journal “Hybrid Pedagogy,” which he says he was already spending much less time with in current months. That was a matter of his private “bandwidth,” he says.

Morris’ new title at Course Hero is vp, teachers. Much of his job duties contain cultivating a neighborhood of professors engaged with the firm. That contains coordinating the firm’s annual schooling summit and its e-newsletter for school.

“One of the primary goals that I have at Course Hero is to continue to foster community,” he says. “Which has been an interesting thing this week.”

Close colleagues defended Morris on social media this week.

“It’s crucial that educators and edtech companies talk to one another,” tweeted Jesse Stommel, co-founder of the Digital Pedagogy Lab. “These platforms should not be something that happens to students and teachers, but something they help develop. I have no doubt Sean is the right person to be leading those conversations @CourseHero and beyond.”

Here are highlights of our dialog with Sean Michael Morris, frivolously edited for readability.

EdSurge: You stated in a single of your tweets this week that the incontrovertible fact that Course Hero reached out to you is “evidence of their commitment to changing and improving their platform.” But I’ve additionally seen others on Twitter involved that it additionally could possibly be a publicity stunt, or tokenism. That the firm may say, ‘Hey, we hired this guy, so we’re OK,’ with out essentially altering any concrete points of their service. What do you say to that concern?

Sean Michael Morris: If I had allowed myself to be employed as a figurehead and as a bandage over issues, I’d be actually ashamed of myself. But I do not suppose that is what’s occurred.

When they approached me, I used to be extremely doubtful. I believed, ‘Why is a tech company approaching me? They know my history. They know who I am. I don’t understand what’s going on here.’ And so I took the first interview. I took the first assembly with a lot of questions, and even all through the whole interview course of, each single time I used to be searching for purple flags, I used to be searching for, ‘Is this a publicity stunt? Are they just wanting someone with credibility to come on board so that they suddenly have credibility by association?’

And I regarded for that, and over and time and again, I used to be satisfied that that’s not the case. I proceed to be satisfied of that when I’m in conferences with folks, and we’re actually speaking about the issues that exist with the product and the issues that we need to attempt to change. … I’m very focused on serving to resolve these issues—not a lot for the sake of the firm as I’m for the sake of college students and academics—as a result of that is the place my loyalty lies always. I’m an educator at the start. And once I took the job, truly I advised them, I stated, ‘so I need to remain me when I take this job.’

There remains to be the incontrovertible fact that the service affords supplies to assist college students research that in some instances are the reply keys to a check. And a lot of professors don’t see that as wholesome research habits however both lazy or dishonest. I do know that customers signal a assertion saying they gained’t cheat, however you could find examples of college students speaking amongst themselves saying that’s why they wished to purchase the product. Is there a method to sq. this? Even with somebody with all the greatest intentions and background, can you are taking this website that was born of serving to college students reduce corners and make it by some means not?

There’s a lot there … I feel the firm is evolving. I can converse to what I see once I discuss to folks there, and that’s that their pedagogy is student-centered, and so they’re actually involved with college students being empowered of their schooling—that aligns with me. That completely aligns with me.

The bigger drawback of dishonest: Of course, you already know, this was a problem earlier than the web. … And I keep in mind when the web grew to become way more accessible to everyone, educators saying, ‘The students will look at any answers they need. They’ll just be able to Google it and find out.’

And there was a enormous concern round, round dishonest. Then there’s at all times a concern of dishonest. … Obviously there are issues with mental property being shared in opposition to folks’s needs [on Course Hero]. They have groups for this at Course Hero, they’re engaged on it. But we dwell in a world the place user-generated content material makes up most of the web, and that is a fixed battle.

Do you might have a benchmark in your individual thoughts the place you intend to say, if issues should not going properly sooner or later, you’ll resolve this doesn’t make sense and also you’ll stroll away from the job?

I had a feeling you had been going to ask that. … I’ve considered that. I’ve thought, OK, the place’s my restrict? At what level do I say, OK ‘Nope, we’re not gonna make it.’ And I truthfully do not know the reply but. I’m very new to this job, and I’m nonetheless making an attempt to get my ft moist. I’m making an attempt to see what the potentialities are.

[But] if there comes a level when ‘Nope,’ then sure, I’ll stroll away.

I took this job primarily based on the incontrovertible fact that they wished somebody who has my ethos. And if it seems that my ethos is just not suitable with the course of the firm, properly, then we must half methods.

This occurred earlier than. I used to be employed by one other company someday in the past [Instructure], and labored for them for a brief interval of time. And whereas they had been nice—the folks had been nice, and I actually favored them. There was merely no place for my work there. And so I left, and I went from there to Middlebury College.

What I hear on a sensible degree from professors is that when professors see supplies like examination solutions on the website in violation of Course Hero insurance policies, it’s time-consuming to report these and get them taken down, and it takes labor for already time-strapped professors. Do you think about modifications to the course of to make that much less onerous for professors?

I can solely converse kind of frivolously on this as a result of I do not, I do not know a lot of the particulars to be trustworthy.

On the pupil aspect, we do every little thing that we are able to to discourage folks from importing issues that should not be uploaded. And we’re making an attempt to do extra, and we hold pondering of new methods to speak to college students that they should not be doing this.

On the takedown aspect, I do know that there is a lot of speak about making an attempt to streamline the course of [while still following copyright law.]

So why had been you curious about this gig? What’s the argument for you doing this?

I made an argument a lengthy, very long time in the past … that the truth is, one of the issues with edtech is that educators had no say in what was taking place. And so when this invitation was provided to me, I believed, ‘Well, here’s an opportunity for an educator to be deeply involved in the production and in the creation of this—of the evolution of this product. And so that’s one of the reasons why I want to reach out to educators, I want them involved in this discussion.…

I’ve always done things in collaboration, in community. So I see this as a way in for not just me, but for a lot of educators to have some voice in what happens. That’s the opportunity. That’s the, that’s the green flag, if you will.

Have you been surprised by the pushback?

I predicted that would happen. I mean, as soon as this was going to happen, more people were going to start talking about Course Hero and the problems of Course Hero. I expected more people asking me these sorts of questions you’re asking me—like, ‘What do you see as the opportunity?’

But, yeah, the pushback has been precisely what I believed it will be. And I’m simply hoping that over the long run, folks will see that I did this for a purpose.





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