SBIR Phase II: Social Marketplace for E-learning

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to create the first on-line social studying platform that allows students to connect, share and learn together. The application is focused on high school and college students. The proposed platform, called OpenStudy, combines both theory and practice in a seamless user-friendly environment that empowers the individual user to learn, create and share their knowledge. OpenStudy will make education accessible, by connecting students of varying levels of expertise, age, location, and social graph; and fun, by providing a social learning experience with peer-to-peer sharing and validation. In the face of globalization and Thomas Friedman's 'flat earth' economy, competing through education is a fundamental need whose importance is being recognized at a national level. Students and educators alike recognize the need for innovative technologies in addressing this problem. Yet according to leading market analysts, the e-learning supply chain is rooted in old business practices and unable to meet the needs of the new buyers. 'The State of Our Nation's Youth' survey reports that high school students feel the pressure to compete with better grades. Despite the rapid adoption of learning management systems by institutions and of social networks by individual students, there is no systematic solution to this problem nor an application in the education field. Significant technical and business innovation is required to introduce a solution to this problem. The OpenStudy platform seeks to accomplish this change by creating a peer-to-peer learning community to provide a social learning experience for its members. Leveraging the wisdom of a community, OpenStudy will enable students, faculty and alumni to engage in a national conversation focused on learning.