<blockquote>
  <p>Students should study the course material and try to solve the problems themselves.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That's notion is wrong. The point of university isn't to teach students to be able to solve problems by looking in a lecture script or their notes from the lecture.</p>

<p>University is supposed to teach students to learn something that will help them in their future lives. 
In today's world using the internet is a central part of learning.</p>

<p>When I do homework and have a problem with some strange R syntax and spend an half an hour trying to figure it out then it makes no sense to stay offline and reread "course material".</p>

<p>In a perfect world I should be able to solve my R synatx problem by running a Google search and finding some explanation of how that specific R function works. </p>

<p>If that approach doesn't work it makes sense to condense the syntax question to a question on stackexchange. It helps my with my problem.
It however also makes the internet a better place. If another person has problems with the same syntax he can now find my question on stackexchange with answers to the problem.</p>
