College students can spend hours upon hours in the library cramming for exams. Recently, four students at Washington University in St. Louis have made crash studying easier with the creation of Schoology.com.
Junior Jeremy Friedman, one of the creators of the site, said Schoology.com is an archive of notes on a variety of subjects posted by students at colleges around the nation. Once posted, notes are accessible as a study aid.
"It's a resource for academic information," Friedman said.
In addition to being a place for students to post class notes, Schoology.com can also be used for tutoring, he said. Any user can register to become a peer tutor and each is able to set his or her own rate.
Friedman said using a tutor from Schoology.com is often cheaper than hiring a personal tutor on campus. It also allows students the opportunity to determine the quality of a tutor before agreeing to pay for his or her services.
"You can get 30 minutes of help from someone without deciding to hire and pay them," he said. "For example, if you're working on a resumé, you can send it in and have the tutor look over and edit it."
Ryan Wang, a junior at Washington University and another creator of Schoology.com, said as well as helping fellow students, those who post their notes on Schoology.com are also eligible to be paid by the site. He said they vow to distribute 90 percent of their advertising revenue back to users depending on the content, quality and amount of the material that he or she gives to the site.
"If you can, imagine [the site] as a pie," Wang said. "You're trying to get the biggest piece - it's like a competition."
The idea for the Web site originated last year between Friedman and a friend. He said the two of them were unable to tackle the idea on their own, so they enlisted the help of Ryan Wang and Tim Trinidad.
Wang said he is responsible for most of the programming and advertising because he is the most experienced and knowledgeable about the process.
"Ryan really made the magic happen," Friedman said.
Burchan Bayazit, professor of computer science and engineering at Washington University, said he guided Friedman and his crew through the creation of the site during a creative computer programming course. The final class assignment was to produce and launch a Web site by the end of the semester.
"I just made suggestions," Bayazit said. "They ran everything pretty efficiently themselves because [programming] was part of the class and they knew everything they needed to know to create the site."
Friedman said throughout the process Bayazit has had helpful feedback and advice.
Schoology.com was not completely up and running until Feb. 25. He said the site currently has more than 1,500 registered users from approximately 80 colleges around the country. Friedman said high school students are welcome to use the site as well - they just have to register under "no network"; however, the site will be updated to include a recently compiled list of high schools.
Schoology.com has continued to attract new users each day but Friedman said when it debuted there were many people debating whether or not the site followed the principles of scholastic honesty. Friedman recalls one instance in which students at Texas University argued the site was a cheat mechanism that violated academic integrity. The controversy extended to professors at Texas University who eventually decided Schoology.com is within academic standards and have since become advocates.
"I think some people just didn't completely understand it," Friedman said. "The site is just a resource. It only has anything you're legally allowed to share."
Since the site has been running, Bayazit said all seems to be going smoothly with the exception of a few technicalities.
"For example, there are a lot of universities listed on the drop-down menu," he said. "You have to scroll through them all in order to find yours. They are working on making a search feature to make it run even quicker."
Schoology.com is not yet widespread on campus, however, when introduced to the site students said they quickly see how it may enhance academic performance.
University of Delaware sophomore John Pendergrass said he thinks Schoology.com is a practical Web site that could help him to excel in his classes.
"It seems like it would give me access to more tutors than are available on campus," Pendergrass said. "I also like that it provides the opportunity to make money from my notes."
Thus far, Schoology's creators said they could not be more excited with the way things turned out.
"We weren't anticipating the response we got," Friedman said. "We're very happy."
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