Nearly a week after an economics professor emailed Arizona State University students about "unethical" behavior in his department, the university has responded with a lengthy rebuttal that answers some questionsand changes course on some previous answers.

Students still are searching for clarity, too, and trying to understand the university's relationship with textbook company Cengage and how it may have affected their studies.

On Tuesday, ASU President Michael Crow addressed the controversy in a Twitter post, linking to a long website post meant to debunk the claims.

Later that day, Tempe's Undergraduate Student Government's senate passed a resolution asking for an outside investigation of the professor's allegations.

And a contract obtained by The Arizona Republic sheds some light on the arrangement between ASU and Cengage.

Despite the university’s prior insistence it had not received a “dime” from the textbook company, ASU and Cengage shared money from fees for some economics courses.

The university’s relationship with Cengage spurred controversy last week when professor Brian Goegan said there was a deal in place where ASU's provost received a grant from Cengage and professors were told to fail students.

ASU vehemently denied all the professor’s allegations, saying it had never received money from Cengage and had no grant from the company. The agreement doesn't mention a grant.

Goegan taught his classes as normal April 18, the date he sent the email to economics majors. Almost immediately after he was done, he said access to his ASU account was cut off.

Later that night he was put on paid leave from the university, he presumes until his contract ends on May 15.

Goegan has about 70 students in his two classes, he said. He wasn’t surprised by ASU’s response and had already taken steps to ensure students wouldn’t be negatively affected if he couldn’t continue teaching.

Goegan appears to have landed on his feet: He said he’s taken a position at another university, but declined to say where.

What the agreement says

Some aspects of ASU's initial response — specifically that the use of an online platform was optional and that the university had not received money from Cengage — are in question.

ASU and Cengage’s agreement shows the two entities shared fees paid by some students who took Economics 211 and 212 courses. Those are key undergraduate classes for students in the university's business school.

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The “co-publishing and fulfillment agreement,” which started in January 2016, said Cengage and ASU were agreeing to provide a course to “ASU’s students and non-ASU students and share in the revenue therefrom.”

The agreement says Cengage would deliver an online learning platform for ASU to use for the two economics courses. Under the agreement, Cengage handled the capital costs for building the courses and ASU provided the instructional design.

ASU also was responsible for research on the “pedagogical and other measurable benefits” of the MindTap platform, an online learning platform from Cengage.

Goegan, questioned the use of MindTap in his email to students, which he said required students to pay “just to turn in their homework.”

ASU previously said the use of MindTap was optional and only used in some courses. That wasn't accurate: The platform is used in all Econ 211 and 212 sections. But there is an option for an adaptive version of MindTap that approximately 30% of Econ 211 and 212 students use and pay a course fee for, ASU spokesman Bret Hovell said.

After Goegan’s email, students publicly questioned the utility of MindTap and said it did seem like they were paying to submit homework.

In the statement posted online and cited by Crow, ASU defended the choice of text and use of MindTap by saying the economics department chair chose it as the “best approach.” The university also said it negotiated a “discount” for students that bundled the digital textbook with MindTap for $93, which ischeaper than other options.

Goegan's claims center on a project between Cengage and the ASU provost's office on adaptive learning, saying the economics department "agreed to require" the use of MindTap so the provost could receive a "large monetary grant" from Cengage.

Cengage issued a statement last week saying it had "never provided a grant to ASU" but that the company and ASU do have a partnership.

"We have a strong, long term relationship with ASU and a partnership in place to collaboratively design high quality and affordable solutions that advance the learning experience for Principles of Economics students," Cengage said.

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Does ASU get money from Cengage?

The agreement details a revenue-sharing plan between Cengage and ASU if the course gets sold to other entities outside ASU.

And the university already brought in money from the agreement, based on the terms.

A “pilot period” from spring 2017 to spring 2018 set the price for students in some sections of Econ 211 and 212 at $100. Of that, ASU retained $21 and sent $79 to Cengage to use the company's platform.

Based on the student counts included in the agreement, the total amount ASU kept would have been more than $25,000.

After the pilot period, ASU students enrolled in Econ 211 and 212 would still pay $100, but ASU would only keep $1 of that and send the rest to Cengage. The agreement estimated that nearly 11,000 students were expected to enroll in these classes from spring 2018 to fall 2019.

In the statement posted online, ASU said the course fee was used to “offset the expenses of developing and providing the adaptive learning platform, including the licensing of that platform from the relevant provider (Cengage, for the ECN 211 and 212 classes).”

Hovell, the ASU spokesman, said the agreement with Cengage does not show the university gets any money from the company.

The university paid $79 during the pilot period and $99 now to Cengage for the license to use their programs, he said. ASU keeps the remainder, which supports the adaptive platform’s use at ASU, he said, including hiring teaching assistants and course design costs.

“We do not even break even,” Hovell said.

But ASU would not receive the $21 if there was no adaptive course in place that charged a $100 fee.

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Potential royalties included in agreement

A bigger chunk of money could come if Cengage and ASU license the courses and sell them to other colleges.

ASU would receive 2 percent of revenue for sales under $250,000. That would increase to 3 percent for sales from $250,001 to $2.25 million, and 5 percent for sales more than $2.25 million.

“Those royalty payments will come from sales of the adaptive course to students at other colleges and universities, not from ASU students. This is similar to royalties paid for textbooks by publishers,” ASU’s online statement says.

The university has similar arrangements in place with external companies who offer adaptive courses in math, biology and psychology, Hovell said.

None of the adaptive courses are licensed to sell to other universities yet, Hovell said. Including provisions for eventual licensing in the Cengage agreement is “incredibly hypothetical” and meant to protect the university’s intellectual property, he said.

“It would be stupid of us if we didn’t claim the(intellectual property) that’s ours,” Hovell said.

Goegan said the university’s deal with Cengage still appears to him like a “quid pro quo” situation that he finds unethical.

While the university has said the economics department, not university administrators, chose the textbook, Goegan provided The Republic with an email from the department's assistant chair that says he should use MindTap because it is a “requirement by the provost’s office.”

He also provided a slide from a presentation by the department that said the provost’s office would almost certainly require the use of MindTap.

Goegan said he believes the provost forced the adoption of Cengage products because of ASU’s agreement with the company.

And while the bundled cost for the textbook and MindTap access was discounted for ASU students, Goegan noted there are various ways students reduce textbook costs, like by sharing books, renting them or buying used copies.

“It’s depriving students of their own ability to reduce costs for themselves,” he said.

How will ASU answer students?

The economics scandal is still captivating students, who are posting about it on social media and wondering what action will be taken to address their concerns.

Students in other courses chimed in to say they, too, had to pay for external platforms to do their homework instead of using already-available platforms like Blackboard and Canvas.

Crow wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that "serious allegations call for a thorough and serious response," but that such a response wouldn't "happen overnight."

"... the proliferation of misinformation and rushes to judgement are counterproductive," he wrote.

Students may not be satisfied with the university's response, though. The resolution passed by the student senate said the provost's office should "launch and fully cooperate with an external investigation, conducted by a qualified law firm or other investigative body that is not already affiliated with Arizona State University."

It also said the economics department and business school should release financial statements to allow students to decide whether Goegan's allegation that ASU received a grant from Cengage are true.

The resolution also supports starting a new university board that includes students that would be able to approve or deny the usage of "any external homework submission platform with cost to students greater than $50."

Reach reporter Rachel Leingang by email at rachel.leingang@gannett.com or by phone at 602-444-8157, or find her on Twitter and Facebook.

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