What we are seeing is three major orthogonal dichotomies pulling at power in the US today.
Most prominent is the left (Democrat)/right (Republican) ideological split, the one focused on most by the media.
As discussed in this posting, there is also a divide between the civil liberties vs. security, and the sides of that debate do not correspond to left/right.
Finally, there is the entrenched power vs. "the people" split, which can be seen in copyright/DRM conflicts, in the influence of money on politics (as discussed by Lawrence Lessig), in the Washington lobbyist revolving door, and even the Tea Party and Occupy movements.
Dan Ariely's work on cheating, including formal experiments on the effect of honor codes, has shown that they do work (to my surprise - as I had assumed they were pointless). See the first question here, his latest book, or just Google him - he's got plenty of writing on the web.
Another possible reason a school might oppose selling notes would be to prop up the educational model of 200 people sitting in a lecture hall copying down what the person at the front is saying. It would be pretty embarrassing for universities to have lecture halls with just handfuls of students in attendance, so forcing all students to come take notes themselves is one way around that problem.
I'm not saying that all large lectures fit this model - just those for which the instructor adds little value.
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three major power struggles
What we are seeing is three major orthogonal dichotomies pulling at power in the US today.
Most prominent is the left (Democrat)/right (Republican) ideological split, the one focused on most by the media.
As discussed in this posting, there is also a divide between the civil liberties vs. security, and the sides of that debate do not correspond to left/right.
Finally, there is the entrenched power vs. "the people" split, which can be seen in copyright/DRM conflicts, in the influence of money on politics (as discussed by Lawrence Lessig), in the Washington lobbyist revolving door, and even the Tea Party and Occupy movements.
Honor codes oddly enough work
Dan Ariely's work on cheating, including formal experiments on the effect of honor codes, has shown that they do work (to my surprise - as I had assumed they were pointless). See the first question here, his latest book, or just Google him - he's got plenty of writing on the web.
Another possible reason a school might oppose selling notes would be to prop up the educational model of 200 people sitting in a lecture hall copying down what the person at the front is saying. It would be pretty embarrassing for universities to have lecture halls with just handfuls of students in attendance, so forcing all students to come take notes themselves is one way around that problem.
I'm not saying that all large lectures fit this model - just those for which the instructor adds little value.