Mission Statement: StudyAll

Introduction

While a large number of educational software products exist, we at SagaciousMedia recognize that there are very few products that effectively help students study for exams and quizzes. StudyAll is a system that fills this void.

In particular, StudyAll is a product that allows students to use study guides created by professors, teachers, parents and other students from any WWW browser. Perhaps the easiest way to starting thinking about StudyAll is that it allows students to use WWW-based "flash cards" to study. However, in reality, it is much more than that.

To see what makes StudyAll more than just a "flash card" system one must know a little about the categories in the cognitive domain of Bloom's taxonomy. They include knowledge (e.g., recall of facts, terms, etc...), comprehension (e.g., comparing, extrapolating), application (e.g., use knowledge in a different way/situation), analysis (e.g., make inferences, make generalizations, break systems into parts), synthesis (e.g., combine components in a new way, propose alternative solutions), and evaluation (e.g., make judgments about validity or quality). "Flash cards" traditionally focus on knowledge, StudyAll does not.

Vision

Study guides can help students with knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (unlike existing systems which focus exclusively on knowledge).
Study guides can be created for subjects in all academic disciplines.
Study guides can be engaging and entertaining.
Study guides can be interactive.
Study guides are media rich (i.e., can include visual and auditory content that is both static and dynamic).
Study guides can be viewed on a variety of different devices (e.g., desktop computers, tablets, smartphones) in a variety of different resolutions and aspect ratios.
Users are provided with performance metrics for each study session.
Study guides can vary in difficulty and/or cognitive category, and progress in difficulty and/or cognitive category (in a pre-planned way and/or based on performance).
Users can request a hint (for a particular question/term/concept).
Study guides can be created for an entire course, not just a single topic. This means that, when considering a question/term/concept, users can request contextual information (e.g., the relevant topic or part of the course that the question/term/concept is related to).

Because of the last two items, StudyAll was originally named FlashCubes to stress the idea that, unlike a flash card that has two sides (the question/term/concept and the answer/definition/explanation), a FlashCube can be rotated from the question/term/concept (on the front) to either a hint (on the top) or a context (on the bottom) if necessary, before rotating to the answer/definition/explanation on the back. Ultimately, it was determined that it is more important to stress the first item (i.e., that StudyAll can be used to acquire knowledge in all cognitive categories).

Target Market

We will make the StudyAll Client (i.e., the software that runs on the browser) available at no charge. Our revenues will come from the StudyAll Composer (i.e., the software that runs on the desktop and is used to create study guides) which which will be sold to organizations that want to develop study guides, the StudyAll Cloud which will host study guides, and specific high-quality study guides (that we will develop).

Our preliminary research indicates that while there are existing "flash card" systems they are unsophisticated and the quality of existing "flash cards" is very low.

Constraints Definition

Must run on all modern WWW browsers.
Must only use features of HTML5, CSS and ECMAScript/JavaScript that are widely supported in current browsers.

StudyAll guides:

Must be written in XML.
Must be editable using a standard text editor, XML editor, and the StudyAll Composer.

The StudyAll Composer:

Must be written in Java.
Must run under MS-Windows, OS X, and Linux/Unix.
Must support XML.

Business Requirements

The StudyAll Client must be usable by people with limited computer skills (e.g., who are familiar with a WWW browser) after only 5 minutes of on-line training (i.e., after reading short description).