"Plus" - someone who knows more about the subject than you, has more experience than you, can act as a mentor and resource for you and answer questions.
"Equal" - a study buddy at about the same level as you to work through problems together and challenge each other to make sure you both understand the material. This is the person you go to when you initially don't understand something and you try to figure it out together. If you're both stumped after you're spent some time with the issue that's when it's time to ask the "Plus."
"Minus" - Someone who doesn't have as much experience or subject matter knowledge as you do. You act as a mentor/resource for this person answering questions and explaining concepts. This in turn helps to solidify your understanding of the material.
I've long thought it would be beneficial to incorporate this concept into online learning and your platform looks like it has all of the information to make it happen. In addition to study buddy recommendations would you consider adding the ability to pair people currently taking the class with people who have completed the class who are willing to be a resource? I would guess the "Equal" is the most important component and your system tackles that but there might be significant value to users in adding the Plus/Minus as well.
Our algorithm favors matches for people that are both currently taking a course - so you are correct in that the "Equal" is the most important component that our system tackles. However, it also does suggest matches for people that are in different stages of the course. It might make a suggestion for someone who is taking a course with someone who has completed it - and vice versa.
In the future, I've thought about adding a Q&A component to the site. And I think that would that could help with the "Plus/Minus" aspect of learning.
Maybe it might also be helpful to have a feature where you could ask to have the algorithm favor "Plus/Minus" matches?
Guest access would be a bit hard, but definitely doable as well.
The main webpage is possibly too minimal. While minimalism is nice, as it sits currently, it gives the appearance of "not done yet". I would recommend adding more explanation about what a user would expect, maybe some screenshots, user reviews, etc.
It likely feels trivial as the creator but keep in mind that you know a lot more about your service (and your vision) than your users do. The goal of your landing page should be to bridge that gap. This all needs to be done without adding any extra work for your users (including filling out forms).
Hopefully that helps a bit?
It's just a trust issue, not in particular with you, but if I come across a website that wants my email address but doesn't clarify what if offers in return, I'm hesitant in giving up that information.
Also it is not clear to me, if my full name would be shared with other users of that page. I certainly don't want my new employer to know that I'm looking for a study buddy for "Java 101" right after accepting that offer for a senior position :)
..I'm going to game the system a bit and ask this thread: Does anyone want to atudy machine learning papers w/me (asynch) and discuss via voice call? Also looking for project partners. Heavy preference for reinforcement learning and computer vision.
<<- even if this works I'll definitely be using your site to find buddies. Thank you!
Same issue in FF incognito mode.
Same issue in Safari.
Same issue in Chrome.
How is this working for anyone?
Oh, wait a minute. The screen goes gray, but the search bar still works. Can I add that this is a bizarre user experience? Had I not been convinced that there might actually be something worthwhile behind this weird gray screen, I would've left and never thought about this again. A simple message 'Use the search bar above to search for courses to add to your profile' would have been more effective for me.
I'm having trouble understanding how this would work. I've got a course in my profile, pinged someone else who was interested, and now we're connected and I can send messages to them and I assume vice-versa. Now what?
How does one 'study' with others over the internet? I'd love to see a 2-player Anki or something like that, but that doesn't seem to be the purpose of this site. This just connects people, which is great, but then... The usefulness of the site seems to 'end' precisely where the work of studying begins. If I can already find a 'study buddy' for some MOOC using the discussion boards on the site, then what is this for?
and yeah, how does one _study_ with others using the internet? Maybe that's the more pertinent question. If I knew the answer to that, maybe the other questions would be obvious.
Stacks isn't promising the ability to study over the Internet necessarily; however, you could if you wanted. For example, you could ask questions via chat. On the other hand, you could meet on Stacks and then move to Skype to study. Or even more, you could potentially meet up in person if you have gotten to know your buddy well enough.
Think of it like how you might think of Tinder. Tinder is called online dating, but you wouldn't necessarily have a date on Tinder.
The feedback here is good! It is appreciated!
Otherwise, for pair or group studying over the internet, I haven't been satisfied with anything that I've seen. That adds some difficulty to the social interactions once the connections are made, and anything that can be done to ease the introductions would be helpful. For physical meetings, it seems like the initial communication might be 'Hi, I'm so-and-so, if you're interested, we can meet in the student library at 10:00AM', or something like that. For Internet-based studying, I'm not sure how that interaction should go. Something like 'Skype me @mynamehere at 10AM EST and we'll study together' doesn't quite seem right to me, because IMing or IRC seems too cumbersome and slow to be useful for studying. I think I'm just ignorant of the tools that can be useful here, but what I've seen so far appears lacking to me.
Another thing, how do I actually find a list of my buddies? OK, I see them now under 'Notifications'. That's unexpected. I was looking for 'My Buddies' or something like that. I'm not sure what 'Notifications' would be for.
.. and the gray overlay does highlight the search bar, I just didn't immediately notice it. My eye is on the 'Search' button that I just clicked, and that gets covered by the overlay, so it gave me the feeling of 'WTF just happened?'
I sometimes feel like a bit of a dick when I critique the work of others, so I'm thankful that you're not taking this the wrong way. In fact, the only reason why I'm looking at this at all is because I think you've done something cool here, and it's potentially very useful. I think you're doing a good job here, and I hope the best for your project.
If you want, you can email me a way to contact to you at admin@stacks.courses and I can give you an update when we add this course!
At the moment, it takes about 10 seconds to complete. So if you haven't gotten any suggestions within 1-3 minutes, then there may not be anyone else looking for a study buddy for those courses, yet.
I just launched this feature today, so the number of potential suggestions will be as low as it will ever be. I plan on getting the word out on several different sites, which will increase the number of potential suggestions.
We'll send you an email when you have new suggestions, so you don't need to continuously check back in with the site.
Also, for which courses are you looking for a study buddy? I can make sure I spread the word to people and communities who have similar interests.
Say I want to learn a new language or framework. It would be nice to be able to find a group of people learning the same thing.
Also, if a study group successfully finished an intro course, they might want to take an advanced course together. Or do some non-MOOC advanced learning.
After all, people aren't taking courses in a vacuum. They're taking them as part of a learning path. That path can include additional courses, exercises, projects, and a lot more.
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Ahh! Looks like are hosted own their own sites. I will take a look at adding these. If you want, you can email me (admin@stacks.courses) a way to contact you and I can give you an update when I have added these.
