SBIR Phase I: Social Marketplace for E-learning

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project seeks to create the first social community for e-learning, enabling professionals and amateurs to generate, distribute, and share more effective e-learning experiences through collaboration and social interaction. The application is focused on higher education. The community will include students, faculty and alumni engaged in peer-to-peer tutoring relationships, providing and consuming supplementary instruction in the form of user-generated tutorials. Specifically this SBIR Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of the concept using a pilot deployment with a major institution, using a range of rubrics to evaluate the technology, user experience, and market viability. The research project will combine both theory and practice in a seamless user-friendly environment that will empower the individual user to learn, create and share their knowledge. The e-learning market is facing disruptive change from so-called Web 2.0 social communities. According to leading market analysts, the supply chain is rooted in old business practices and unable to meet the needs of the new buyers. Significant technical and business innovation is required to introduce user-generated content into this market, while maintaining quality of materials and cognitive principles of e-learning software design. The outcome of the research project will provide a platform to accomplish this change, creating a peer-to-peer learning community that will generate a diversity of learning materials to provide individualized learning experiences to its members. Leveraging the wisdom of crowds, the platform will enable students, faculty and alumni to engage in a national conversation focused on learning, creating and sharing a range and quantity of e-learning materials that has not been feasible till now. This will have significant and sustained impact on education.