Is Course Hero Worth It (Tutors And Students)
You’ve probably heard of Course Hero if you’re a student or a tutor. Depending on how it’s used both tutors and students have their opinions of this popular study resource platform.
With this platform’s success comes many controversies around its usage in various academic settings.
While students have concerns about whether the usage of Course Hero constitutes cheating or whether the platform notifies schools of student usage, both students and tutors have a common concern in whether Course Hero is worth it.
This article will look at Course Hero and whether it’s worth it for both students and teachers. To do this we’ll begin by looking at the pros and cons of Course Hero for students and tutors.
Pros Of Course Hero For Students
– Tutoring Service
Course Hero’s community of tutors are always available to help students answer any questions and to help them clarify and difficult concepts. Teachers are available 24/7 to help any students when needed.
– Huge Catalogue
Community sourced database of educational resources serve to aid students to better understand relevant concepts. These materials are uploaded by other students who have taken the same course and can become invaluable as resources to students having challenges in the same course.
– Find Alternate Solutions
While you may already have an answer to your question, Course Hero can help students to identify alternative solutions or approaches to solving a particular question. A typical example is in the field of software development. Students can identify different logics other students used to approach a question.
– Free Unlock
Students can upload notes and classwork to earn free unlocks. They can also upload a specified number of documents to successfully unlock content for a period of one month. That said, most students prefer to simply pay for the subscription as the unlock process can be quite tiring.
– Usability
An online study resource platform needs not only a huge database of materials but also needs to be user-friendly. Course Hero is designed to be mobile-friendly and doesn’t require a learning curve.
– Mobile App
In this age of technology, users are used to getting information on the go. While the web platform is mobile-responsive, Course Hero also has android and iOS applications for students to easily access information at any time.
Cons Of Course Hero For Students
– Inconvenient Document Unlock Process
While Course Hero has subscription packages, unsubscribed students can access a document by uploading five documents. Students who upload these five documents do not instantly get access to the document they requested but instead, need to wait till their uploaded documents get 5 unlocks or 5 thumbs rating before the requested document becomes accessible to the student.
This is obviously a problem as it may take a while for students to successfully gain access to a document. As a result of this challenge and delay, most students prefer to simply subscribe to one of the available packages.
– Limited Tutor Questions
Although students get access to materials on the platform, each subscription package has a limited number of questions that can be asked per month.
– Subscription Price
Monthly subscription price is twice as expensive compared to the yearly subscription price available for members. Students looking for the best value have no choice but to resort to paying a full year’s worth of subscription upfront.
– Wrong Answers
While answers to questions on Course Hero are mostly correct, some of the freelance tutors on the platform may not be specialists on a topic and may provide wrong answers to questions. That said, a student has no way to confirm their answer if it hasn’t been voted on by other students which could lead to a student submitting the wrong answer.
– Customer Service
Course Hero may be a great platform for educational resources but some students have complained about the quality of customer service. Unlike some of its competitors like Chegg, Course Hero’s customer service doesn’t have the best reputation in the industry.
– Institution Ban
Some educational institutions ban the use of Course Hero by their students and even go the distance to block its usage on their campuses. While these institutions would be unable to track the usage of Course Hero outside their campuses in most cases, students are expected to abide by the regulations of their institutions.
Pros Of Course Hero For Tutors
– Convenient Working Hours
Being a Course Hero Tutor enables you to work anywhere and at your own convenience. Tutors only need to have access to their computers and internet connectivity to make money working as a Tutor on Course Hero.
– Earn Extra Income
Tutors can supplement their full-time incomes by answering questions on Course Hero. They simply need to leverage their expertise in a particular field to answer the relevant questions.
Cons Of Course Hero For Tutors
– Poor Communication
Tutors on Course Hero have complained of their communication as relevant issues relating to answered questions aren’t necessarily well-explained to the tutors who answered them.
– Student Dislikes
While students can dislike an answer provided by a tutor, Course Hero has no mechanism to check whether the answers provided were indeed wrong or correct. Tutors have complained that Course Hero simply takes a student’s dislike as meaning, the answer provided by the tutor was wrong. Unfortunately, some students simply go about the platform disliking answers thinking these answers were provided by Course Hero employees, and disliking their answers was simply a way to troll those employees.
– Unfair Tutor Treatment
Course Hero has a mostly good reputation with students but seems to have a bad rep with its tutors. Tutors have complained about unfair termination without reasonable explanations and their earned revenue was never received.
Is Course Hero Worth It For Students
From the pros and cons discussed above, we can easily say that Course Hero is worth it for students looking to supplement their studies. It is worth noting that although most academic institutions permit the use of Course Hero as a study resource, they expect a high level of academic integrity from their students.
Yes, Course Hero is a valuable resource for students looking to supplement their studies with the available content and tutors. The yearly subscription package would prove to be invaluable for students looking for study materials, lesson notes, questions, and help with their assignments.
Is Course Hero Tutoring Worth It
While some tutors on Course Hero have expressed concerns over unfair tutor treatments and student behavior, Course Hero still provides some of the best in remuneration in the industry.
Yes, Course Hero provides arguably the best remuneration in the industry for tutors. Course Hero tutors have the flexibility of choosing when to work, time, place, and working hours.
Is Course Hero Worth It
With a huge community of students and tutors contributing resources, Course Hero is one of the largest educational resource platforms in the industry.
Yes, Course Hero has one of the largest online community-sourced educational resource platforms with 24/7 tutor availability. Lesson notes, questions, videos, and other resources available on Course Hero can aid students in revision or assignments while tutors can also make a decent income from answering questions.
Students with premium membership can access a broad range of resources and limited access to tutors based on the subscription plan. While some teachers have expressed their displeasure about the treatment of tutors, tutors can make a decent income on Course Hero.
Is Course Hero Reliable
Course Hero’s community-sourced educational content is mostly reliable and Course Hero does a decent job screening out quality content. However, some Course Hero tutors are freelancers who may not be experts in their fields.
Students should always endeavor to use the platform as a study source as any unethical misuse of the platform could lead to negative repercussions in their studies.
