Open Study

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= Chris Sprague (CEO) calls it a collection of 'massive multiplayer study groups'; generally considered part of the emerging 'social learning networks'.

URL = http://openstudy.com/

Description

"OpenStudy is a social learning network where students ask questions, give help, and connect with other students studying the same things. Our mission is to make the world one large study group, regardless of school, location, or background.

OpenStudy uses AI recommendation engines to match students, and really real-time technologies to facilitate online interaction. It's like walking into a library or coffee shop and finding just the right group of students who can help you with what you're studying right now or someone struggling with a problem who could really use your help…halfway across the globe.

OpenStudy was founded in 2007 by Ashwin Ram, a Georgia Tech professor, Preetha Ram, an Emory University dean, and their former student and CTO Chris Sprague who returned to Atlanta after a stint in the Valley. They were joined by serial entrepreneur and now CEO, Phil Hill, along with a team of smart students from Georgia Tech and Emory who, after feeling your pain, devoted the last two years of their lives making your study experience less lonely and more productive.

OpenStudy is a for profit business funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Georgia Research Alliance. We're located at Georgia Tech's ATDC Center in Technology Square, Midtown Atlanta." (http://openstudy.com/what-we-do.html)


Status

August 2011:

"Having just come out of beta in February OpenStudy now has 40,000 registered students in over 1,500 schools in 143 countries. There are 20,000 questions being asked monthly in the math group alone.

And the institutions that have forked over cash to support OpenStudy are impressive: the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Georgia Research Alliance and the Gates foundation. Most recently the startup partnered up with MIT OpenCourseWare to let students work together on over 65 courses.

Future plans for the startup include adding even more gamification features like referring questions to Facebook Friends, a groups function (“teams”) and the widgetization of OpenStudy profile credentials so users can add them to other sites. “We want our students to become heroes to their peers – and we want to make sure everyone knows when they are,” Birdsong explains." (http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/08/openstudy-wants-to-turn-the-world-into-one-big-study-group/)


More Information

  1. Background and other examples on Social Studying, see [1]
  2. http://unclasses.org/ ; GradeGuru, FinalsClub
  3. Video: Chris Sprague on Open Study: [2]