Today most college students can bid online to buy almost anything to fulfill their everyday needs: class notes, essays, dorm room accessories and even a date for Saturday night.

Uflipit.com, a new Web portal for college students only, is trying to connect more college students across the country in an online marketplace.

Greg Soroka, Uflipit.com co-founder, came up with the idea as an undergraduate at Hofstra University as an easy way to sell his stuff after graduation.

"There are 40,000 students at Penn State," Uflipit.com's other founder, Jarrad Lewis, said. "You don't want to run around campus praying that someone sees a flier for what you're selling. It's much easier to be able to go online and post a picture and price for free."

The site is available only to students and university officials with ".edu" e-mail addresses. Since its introduction in late January, about 400 members have joined the site to auction off and buy goods, covering a range of everyday needs from the academic to the social.

"You can buy or sell anything but drugs and sex," Lewis said.

Lewis said one of the perks of Uflipit.com is that students connect to each other nationally, or they can refine their searches to specific states and colleges.

For items like textbooks, Lewis said connecting to students across the country will help save money on one of their most costly expenses all semester.

"A lot of times bookstores don't buy back books for whatever reason," Lewis said. "But I'll bet that somewhere else in the country another campus is using that book, and that's where Uflipit comes in."

Students can also buy class notes, research papers and presentations from the site. Most material is available for download immediately after the sale is complete.

Though plagiarism could be a problem, Lewis said the site should be used only as a study guide.

"You can't sell tests or exams; that's illegal," he said. "But plagiarism is not our fault -- people can plagiarize off of [Google], too."

John Jordan, director of the eBusiness Research Center at the Smeal College of Business, said several aspects of the Web site would still need work.

"There were a couple of problems that eBay had to overcome that Uflipit will have to overcome, too," Jordan said. "One of the biggest questions is: How do you trust the seller?"

Jordan said for students buying academic products, such as essays or class notes, off of the site, students would probably rather stick with local services.

"Otherwise, if there's a problem, where can you go to say, 'Hey, these class notes are no good'?" he said.

In its early stages, Jordan said there were other potential pitfalls to Uflipit.com's services.

"The other thing that eBay monitored was the legality of the products they sold," he said. "Selling term papers is obviously an area of dubious legality."

Ultimately, Jordan said he was unsure whether Uflipit.com would be popular among students at Penn State.

"Why do you need to go to a national source for local items?" Jordan said.

Rick Vande Visse (sophomore-information sciences and technology) said he visited the site, but he would use it only for textbooks.

"I don't know if I'd ever buy a research paper or anything like that, and I wouldn't sell mine either," Vande Visse said. "I'd feel like you're ripping people off."

Lisa Yim (junior-industrial engineering) uses online auction sites like eBay often but said she was not quite sold on using Uflipit.com right away.

"I don't know if I'd personally use it because LionConnection seems to have everything," Yim said.

She also said using local services might be the cheaper route for college students looking to save a few dollars. "It's so easy just to meet up downtown and exchange what you want," she said.