Our Co-Founder, Ashwin Ram, was interviewed last week by CNN about OpenStudy. Click here or the image below to view the video.

FoxNews came to the office and interviewed another Co-Founder, Preetha Ram, and our CEO, Phil Hill (pictured below). To view the video click here or the image below.

It was great going through our first big media run. We are very appreciative of the exposure and helpful feedback from new users. Keep it coming because the changes are occurring now. Everyday we wake up and try to make the world your study group — onward we move forward!

Best,

Oliver Lancaster

Enjoy!

Let’s walk through the major features added to OpenStudy.

1. Channels turn to Study Groups and Topics

This is a big one. We found the channel structure was confusing and unscalable. To fix this we’ve converted Channels to Study Groups and Topics. View FAQ’s about these changes below.

2. Rating System – How Valuable Are Your Contributions?

Your contributions can now be rated. This allows a user to know how valuable their input is to the OpenStudy community. A detailed How It Works is below.

3. User Feed Changes – Items Important To You!

The user feed in your OpenStudy profile is more customizable and dynamic. What does this mean? Users have more control of what they see in their feed and greater flexibility with their feed changes. Read more about the changes below.

I hope you are hungry…

Below are FAQ’s about Channels turning to Study Groups and Topics.

What are Study Groups?
We like equations at OpenStudy: Study Groups = Groups of People
Example of a Study Group: MIT 6.0 Intro Computer Science (OCW)

What are Topics?
Topics = Subject Material
Example of a Topic: Computer Science

Do I now join a Study Group?

Yes, on OpenStudy you now join a community of people you want to study with and they are called a Study Group.

Can I create a Study Group?

Yes, Yes, and Yes! Study Groups are now user created. Want to get your whole class involved? Start a study group! Want to do a project with just a few participants? Start a Study Group!

What do Study Groups look like?

Below is the home page of a Study Group. Click on the image to enlarge.

Study Groups create a much more structured online learning experience.

How do I use topics?

Topics on OpenStudy provide much greater discoverability. Now, in a few easy clicks, you can see every question and studypad created in a particular topic. You can go to the Topic home page (pictured below) and view all the content that has been added to that Topic.

Can I add topics?

You can add  topics to Study Groups and questions.

How can I stay connected to a topic?

To keep connected to a topic, you’ll want to follow it. This creates the ability to have an “all you can eat” portion of any subject on OpenStudy.

This is what a topic page looks like:

Topics are a significant improvement to OpenStudy’s “One Big Study Group” mission.

How the Ratings System Works on OpenStudy

- Each Question/Studypad has a rating system where users can rate how helpful other users’ contributions are.
- Each Study Group has a list of the most helpful members.
- Each Topic has a list of the most helpful contributors.
- Each User can see who helps them the most as well as how helpful they have been.

The following is an example of a rating system within a Question:

In the studypad, each contribution by a user can be rated helpful. To do this, you click on the “thumbs up” next to the helpful contributor. This gives a new viewer of the question/studypad an idea of who’s contributions are the most valuable. An important note is that you can only rate the contribution one time, but you can take that rating back and give it again as many times as you’d like.

The following is how Study Groups show who are the most helpful members:

The column of users on the right are the ones who have been rated most helpful in this Study Group. The number indicates how many questions/studypads they’ve been rated helpful. Note* You can still be rated as the most helpful contributor in a Study Group even if you’re not a member.

The following is how a topic page shows who are the most helpful contributors within the topic:

Very similar to Study Groups, the column of users on the right are the ones who have been rated most helpful within the topic. The number indicates how many questions/studypads they’ve been rated helpful. Note* You can still be rated as the most helpful contributor in a topic even if you don’t follow it.

Want to know how helpful you’ve been on OpenStudy? The higher number of helpful contributions the more helpful you’ve been (image below)

Who has helped you the most? The column on the right shows who’s most helpful to you (image below).

3. User Feed Changes

The user feed has two main views:
- Top Items – We bring you the top questions, studypads and activity from your Study Groups, Topics and People.
- All Items – This views shows all items in your study network.

Browsing your feeds is much simpler.
- You can now see, at a glance, the unanswered questions in your entire study network.
- You can also filter their feed by one topic at time.

We are confident these changes will create a much cleaner, useful, and enjoyable experience. Now we are headed back to the kitchen to keep cooking. Feedback (fresh ingredients) is always welcomed at feedback [at] openstudy [dot] com.

Enjoy!

Oliver Lancaster

]]> http://blog.openstudy.com/2010/09/02/openstudy-just-got-a-lot-better/feed/ 9 http://blog.openstudy.com/2010/08/10/the-definition-of-cheating/ http://blog.openstudy.com/2010/08/10/the-definition-of-cheating/#comments Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:29:39 +0000 Oliver W. Lancaster http://blog.openstudy.com/?p=870 After speaking to an audience of approximately 100 professors at Georgia Perimeter College earlier this week (Georgia’s largest 2-year academic institution), a blog post had to be written about the word cheating. Cheating has ruined academic careers, tarnished reputations, and created indescribable amounts of humiliation for students. Yet, students still risk their future to take the easier route to academic success. If you don’t think cheating is rampant, guess again. Out of all the students asked to withdraw each year from Harvard, nearly a quarter of them are a result of academic dishonesty.

If cheating was black and white, there wouldn’t be a need for academic honor councils or student disciplinary committees, but of course it’s not that simple. OpenStudy team members have met with hundreds of students and professors in recent months and the communication divide within both circles is astonishing.

Georgia Perimeter College Professors

Why Students Cheat?

Before we can even begin to define cheating, let’s take a look at why students do it. The obvious reasons come immediately to mind: pressure to compete, compensating for lack of effort, or because it’s the norm. The number one reason I believe students cheat is because they don’t think they are doing anything wrong. “Technological detachment phenomenon” is what California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo professor Trevor Harding attributes to the high amounts of cheating. He believes students think that “As long as there’s some technology between me and the action, then I’m not culpable for the action.”

The Divide – “Unauthorized Collaboration”

Each professor, class, college, and assignment has a different gray area. As a result, students have different perceptions of what’s “okay,” and what’s not. For example, some professors don’t care if you “work together” on homeworks or even take-home tests. The reasoning behind this nontraditional approach: if the student doesn’t learn the material, they’ll end up failing the exam when they don’t have anyone except themselves. Inversely, there are professors on the other side of the spectrum who take dramatic steps to punish anyone who sniffs the possibility of getting help.

According to one of the most recent surveys from the Center of Academic Integrity, approximately 22% students have cheated on a test while 43% have performed some type of “unauthorized collaboration.”

These numbers pale in comparison to Rutgers University’s Donald McCabe, who found that “a whopping 95 percent of high school students say they’ve cheated during the course of their education, ranging from letting somebody copy their homework to test-cheating.”

How can students keep up with what is appropriate and what isn’t when their professors have different restrictions on each type of evaluation method?

An even better question is how can students keep up with each restriction on every assignment when 40% are not attending class?

Cheating Defined

According to OpenStudy’s experience (remember how many students and professors we talk to), cheating is any work done with others that the professor has made clear shouldn’t be worked on together. This “unauthorized collaboration” ranges from professor to professor, university to university, and assignment to assignment — good luck Joe Student!

Besides, one doesn’t want to put your friends in position to decide your fate a la Matt Damon and Brendon Frazier in School Ties.

OpenStudy’s POV

The number one concern educators have with OpenStudy is that we will be used as a crutch for students’ educations rather than a walking stick. It’s true, OpenStudy places a greater responsibility on the student to learn the material because now they have a resource where studiers of every subject can organize and collaborate in real time.

We won’t be able to keep tabs on each student’s intent when coming to OpenStudy, but we can guarantee users will have the opportunity to learn from others who are studying the same material.

OpenStudy Makes Learning a Meritocracy  (If you have a computer with Chrome, Safari, or Firefox)

Fortunately, the ones who work the hardest, learn the most, and give back by teaching the material will win. Why? The hardest workers and most inquisitive users will get the most out of this new resource and that is awesome.

]]> http://blog.openstudy.com/2010/08/10/the-definition-of-cheating/feed/ 6 http://blog.openstudy.com/2010/08/03/president-obama-passes-by-openstudy-hq/ http://blog.openstudy.com/2010/08/03/president-obama-passes-by-openstudy-hq/#comments Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:26:23 +0000 Oliver W. Lancaster http://blog.openstudy.com/?p=858 Yes, you read it right. President Obama did pass by the OpenStudy office yesterday. He was on his way to the Hyatt in downtown Atlanta (only a few blocks South of us), but that doesn’t mean we didn’t snap a few pictures of him and his motorcade driving down 75/85. Look at the one below.

Can you guess which one he was in? We couldn’t either.

The digital clock on the iPhone turned 3:20 p.m. last Thursday and all work at the OpenStudy office halted for the next 24 hours. Each member of the team took the next 1,440 minutes to create anything they wanted. The only catch: each project had to be presented to the entire team on Friday starting at 3:20 p.m.

Cake and drinks accompanied the presentations as we all watched our colleagues present their creations.

OpenStudy CTO, Chris Sprague a.k.a. Spraguer, a.k.a Boogo Fresh, started the party by presenting his joint venture with Erik Galiki. Erik reads a lot!

In 24 hours, they created the new feature where you can attach images and pdf’s to Studypads. Most excellent! Look for it in the next push.

Chris Sprague informs the team of new features. Watch out for the new hidden rickroll (up up down down left right left right b a b).

Erik Galiki holds it up for the camera.

On deck was Marketing Manager, Jon Birdsong. His main project can be viewed below:

Jacob Robertson a.k.a. Grobertson a.k.a. the Perpetual Thinker, came out swinging this Friday afternoon as he unveiled OpenStudy the Game!

Phil has no idea that he is about to get rickrolled by Grobertson’s game.

Phil just got blasted by a fembot and sent to rickroll land.

Up third was the Oracle from India, OpenStudy’s Lead Designer, Siddharth “just got a new iPhone 4″ Gupta! Siddharth created a flash image indicating that items are loading on OpenStudy. Below is a still image which doesn’t do the animation justice…oh well, looks like we’ll have to wait for the next push.

Beautiful!

Next up was Sneaky Shahein. This future Harvard MD internalized his qualms with certain collaboration features on OpenStudy and designed a wider, bigger, and more magical Studypad.

Future Harvard MD

QA intern, Min-hee, took care of everyone’s appetite by preparing chilli paneer for the afternoon. Yummy it was.

OpenStudy Captain, Phil Hill took strategic command and implemented the question to text feature…all within 24 hours, remember. Go ahead, try it out, text OpenStudy to 74700 and ask your question.

William Hockey, who not only designed his own personal website in 24 hours but also created his own business plan and presentation. Wow! (We were going to post his entire idea/presentation to this post but decided just to post it on this Google doc here instead).

We got a pic of him before Forbes.

Lastly, came Marketing Intern, Charlie Cheng a.k.a. Charmander, who created a CrunchBase profile for our team as well as entering us into the upcoming Disrupt Competition in San Francisco. Winner!

Charlie is focused.

This blog post wouldn’t be complete with out mentioning Chief Software Architect, Antonio Salazar. He built an awesome bug tracker, but he only did it a week earlier because he is in Greece. Safe travels Antonio!

And lastly, a special treat:

Be on the look out at a campus near you for Owlfred!.

Building the world’s biggest study group is awesome! Hanging around smart people everyday in OpenStudy doesn’t get much better. Right now, we have a community of over 1100 very smart people and we are about to become much larger as we move out of Private Beta. With so much activity, we believe now is the time to start organizing our community which is why we are starting three programs.

1. Student Advisory Council

What You Receive:

- Access to our dev site and upcoming designs/wireframes/features.
- A weekly email explaining about new features and overall direction of the site.
- Invites to parties, bowling outings, and more overall funness (locals advantage).
- Resume enhancement.
- Chances to meet other bright, awesome people.
- Special designation in your OpenStudy profile.
- Chances to win sweet schwag!

(Since we are providing access to future features, wireframes, mockups etc, in order to be in this group, we do require a phone interview)

What the Student Advisory Council Does:

- Offer feedback, suggestions, and ideas about OpenStudy’s features and benefits.
- Share what we are all working on with other cool people.

2. Channel Leaders

What You Receive:

- Profile recognition as being the channel leader.
- Praise for being smart.
- Resume enhancement.
- A head start when we start the ranking and rewards system.
- Chances to win sweet schwag as well.

What Channel Leaders Do:

- Answer questions in their field of expertise and on their channel.
- Build your channel by inviting other like minded academic enthusiasts to it.

3. Campus Reps (paid)

- Details coming! If you’re interested in representing your campus, email owlfred [at] openstudy [dot] com

Hoot! Hoot!

Owlfred