Students can share and post notes on the new Web site, ‘I Slept Through Class’
Josh Holderbaum
Western Herald
Students who miss class have a new way to stay on top of coursework thanks to a Web site that’s all about notes.
I Slept Through Class, www.isleptthroughclass.com, allows students at any college or university to create accounts and upload or download class notes, blog with other students and accumulate points to receive gift cards.
Ryan Sapp, site founder and CEO, created the Web site in fall 2007 while he was a student at the University of Dayton and didn’t have a lot of time.
“[Sapp] realized that as an athlete he was missing class a lot because of traveling, and lots of other athletes were missing class, too,” said Allison Barber, isleptthroughclass.com director of marketing. “He saw a way to help them get notes from classmates online, so he created the site and took it official.”
On the site, users can accumulate points by uploading notes, creating blog threads and receiving positive ratings for their notes.
All notes are checked for copyright violations, such as posting material from tests, quizzes or sections from books, and checked to make sure they are legitimate.
“We approve all points manually, so if anyone is trying to cheat the system, we try to keep that to a minimum,” Barber said.
Points can then be redeemed for gift cards to Target, PayPal, Nike and others.
A page called “Study Break,” consisting of games and entertaining videos, is also available.
Not all users use the site only to get missed notes, Barber said.
“We’ve had many people who are thinking about changing their majors,” Barber said. “If they’re thinking about going into nursing, they might look at nursing notes to see if it’s interesting or not.”
So far the site has received few complaints.
“The response has been pretty positive,” Barber said. “As with any business there will be some negative feedback, but we’ve received mostly positive comments.”
Despite the site’s URL, the site wasn’t designed for slackers, Barber said.
“If people are skeptical about it, they should know that we don’t condone cheating or skipping class in any way,” Barber said.
WMU senior Marcus Diaz thinks the site would be beneficial to students who may have to miss class.
“I think it would be all right,” Diaz said. “It’s not like it would be plagiarism. Everyone’s missed class at some point and you have to get notes somehow.”
Beneficial as it is, users still might be missing things from class, Diaz said.
“The experience of class is way different than just getting notes online,” Diaz said.
Junior Shawna Eddy has more mixed feelings about the site.
“It’s kind of a cool idea, a cool concept,” Eddy said. “It depends on how you use it. You pay for classes either way, so the school gets what they want. It’s up to you to get what you want.”
Despite having mixed feelings, Eddy isn’t unfamiliar with sharing notes.
“In my first semester here, my friend and I used to share notes,” Eddy said. “The teacher would talk so fast I’d write down one thing, my friend would write down another, and we’d combine it all after class.”
