Latest Research Projects

Document Sharing Research Project

Pay to Play. All throughout the internet there are websites that collect copyright protected documents either through indexing or from subscriber uploads with little regard for the proper owner. Looking at this wide problem through a more narrow scope, Academic Integrity, suffers greatly from this type of business model.

Websites like, Course Hero, StuDocu, Studylib, have their users upload documents or pay for a subscription in order to view others onthe website. Although aware of the cheating that goes on, the uploading of intellectual property owned by professors, universities, etc., they declare zero liability for any copyright infringements because they explicitly exercise no oversight over posted content. These sites only take down copyrighted material when a complaint is filed, an inconvenient and tedious process.

We intend to determine just how much of this content exists on these self-help, student studying websites.