Karen Costa, an educator focused on trauma and a freelance faculty development facilitator, put Course Hero’s questionable practices regarding student privacy and trauma in the spotlight with a post on Medium earlier this month. Costa found numerous examples of student writings—frequently with identifying information—disclosing intensely personal traumas, including gang rape, incest and domestic violence. She questioned why a company valued at $3.6 billion would not do more to protect the students from whose work it profits.

Smalley, S. (2022, February 15). Balancing student privacy and open access. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/15/course-hero-contends-student-privacy-concerns

“From a data privacy perspective, what strikes me is the absolute absence of any kind of content moderation on the site, which inappropriately places the burden to protect privacy on students who are in a vulnerable position—needing support materials and uploading whatever they have to get it—without appropriate guidance,” Clarke Gray said in an email. “This is not a process that can be left to free-for-all, and I know from working with students that the range of the sense of what is or should be private data can vary tremendously.”

She called the fact that Course Hero doesn’t redact or otherwise moderate user submissions “plainly exploitative.”