Question

What's your vision for this website? Some of what goes on here is really great and productive. Oftentimes, it facilitates meaningful and cooperative learning and I love that. Too often however, the site is used simply as a quick way to get answers to homework problems without having to do any work or thinking.

Is that kind of use in line with your intended vision for the site?

Answer 1

I agree, too often the first, say, 10 question are really comprised of only 2 or 3 types of questions.

Answer 2

Well. My thought is that educators or tutors should desire learning. The kind of learning that is lasting and practical. That is, we should hope for them to be able to go out and use what they are taught. Some people on here teach that way.

Some people just give an answer and move on. Sure, the students appreciate that more for the most part, but it's not genuinely helping them much.

Answer 3

I try to, but often when I ask the OP questions or try to steer him/her in a general direction someone else post the answer.

Answer 4

Yeah. You're one of the people who does a great job giving genuinely good help. But that's exactly the problem I'm trying to address.

Right now if you want to give GOOD help, you essentially have to try to find a problem that is ignored by the bulk of people for some reason or another. Too much work or too hard or something. The problem with this is that often times if only one person is helping someone and they don't get right to the answer, the person will just repost the question.

Or you have to find the people who are willing to go through and understand the method even after they have the answer, which is rare.

The sucky thing right now is that the system really rewards pure answer posting more than clear explanation.

Answer 5

This is all true, but also hard to counter. The only thing I can think of is not just rewarding per answer but per word count somehow. Of course that's not ideal either.

Answer 6

We're working on ways that we can improve rewards for `better' answers and make them greater than rewards for quick answers.

Answer 7

We have to be both realistic and idealistic. Ideally, everyone would want a full-throated explanation. Indeed, often users eventually need that. Sometimes, however, they just want an answer. The question is, do we throw out everyone who just wants an answer? Then we are alienating a base of users who may well want serious help later -- just maybe not now. And when the time comes for serious help, they won't come.

Answer 8

Well, first of all I'm just curious whether the people who run the site even consider it to be an issue. From my point of view it seems atrocious and totally worth trying to fix.

Answer 9

It's always been our goal to be a lifeline for students, so that they can come both for in-depth study, and when all of a sudden the deadline is upon them, they still don't get what they're working on, and they need help. And we can't just throw users out because they want answers.

Our goal, in essence, is for the community and the environment to politely and over time guide as many people as possible towards learning and not just receiving answers. But we can't convince people who aren't here.

Answer 10

We absolutely consider it to be an issue, we just don't think the fix is at all straightforward.

Answer 11

I certainly agree with that.

Answer 12

Not here to criticize the way you run things. =)
Just to start a discussion.

Answer 13

The problem is, if people are looking for `just answers' and they don't get them here, they'll go find them elsewhere. In a vacuum, that's fine. But if we're trying to foster a community where learning is valued, we believe that there is a benefit to keeping those users and trying to guide them away from the `just answers' mentality politely, over time.

Answer 14

Absolutely :) And we appreciate it!

Answer 15

Our point of view on this has been evolving for some time now, and it's still evolving. We know the `power helpers' in the community can get really frustrated by the simple answers flying around.

Answer 16

I agree with that. There's likely to be a snowball effect with user numbers. Even if they are crappy students, they are more students, and more students bring more students and some of those are bound to be good students.

Answer 17

If you have any suggestions at all on how we can structure a system that rewards in-depth answers better, we would love to hear them. We're trying to come up with ideas ourselves, and more ideas can only help.

Answer 18

Exactly, that's definitely one big one. I also think that we're only one part of a greater education landscape. We're trying to push the student-to-student help portion of it, but to really reduce the `I just need an answer' crowd, there needs to be a shift in the greater landscape, as well. We're hoping we can trigger some of that here, by structuring OpenStudy as a game and encouraging the right behaviors using that game.

Answer 19

Very cool. I'll be brainstorming.
One immediate thought is graded reward. A 1 to 5 star system instead of a binary good/bad answer.

Answer 20

Yeah, we had a similar thought -- three different kinds of medals, gold, silver, bronze. But, you can only give say one gold a day, 5 silver a day, and unlimited bronze.

Answer 21

Oh daaamn... what if your questions got rated too?

Answer 22

I'd love it if you had a teacher rating separate from your student rating.

Answer 23

Yeah, the idea of rating questions has been thrown out before. It's not a bad one at all.

Answer 24

Just need to come up with a good way of showing it without cluttering things up too much.

What would you envision as a `teacher rating'?

Answer 25

The concept of being a "good student" is one that gets wholly overlooked most of the time. It would be awesome if people had an incentive to learn well.

Answer 26

Absolutely. And honestly, the good students are often also good helpers. One of our goals with OpenStudy is to make good students appreciated :)

Answer 27

But yes, I would love it if people who learn well are rewarded too. Indeed, I try to give medals to people who I help who learned well, i.e. who moved some of the answer along on their own.

Answer 28

I think you should run it essentially the way you're running rankings now. Let everyone keep their current rankings, but that ranking their teacher ranking. Next to that ranking put their student ranking with everyone starting at 1.

Answer 29

@shadowfiend

It seems to me that projecting an image of "Bring your questions here, we'll give you answers" is going to hurt in the long run.

One of your arguments is that "educating" users might frighten them away and they won't come back.

Users who don't appreciate help and come simply come for answers, well then, the users here may as well just do their tests for them. I think this sort of user should definitely not be encouraged.

There are plenty of people who actually do want help, some ask for it directly, some need to be prodded a little and so on.

You can try for a "tech" fix to some extent, end of the day though, you need people who are minded to help, to stick around and do that.

Answer 30

The key distinction is that users here aren't doing their tests for them, they are doing their homework for them. Tests by definition are done in an isolated environment to verify whether a user has learned or not.

Answer 31

Teachers who eschew a test in that context open themselves up to cheating in a variety of ways, and we don't really consider it our job to fix that problem for them. Our attitude is that if you cheat on your homework, you will pay the price when test time comes, because you won't have learned anything. That's why tests are always weighted so much more heavily than homework.

Answer 32

This distinction is being blurred by the internet.

Answer 33

Part of the reason for that is that there are arguments to be made for exams not being the best model for assessment anyway, but I take your point.

Answer 34

I'm not so much concerned that educating them will frighten them away, I'm saying as long as someone is willing to provide `just an answer' and the person doesn't want any more help, we don't see why they should have to go elsewhere. The same thing happens in study groups.

There's no way we'll ever be able to distinguish between what is an exam and what is homework. At least not in the short term. So instead of trying to exclude everything that looks exam-y, we accept everything. And our community, our helpers, can choose not to answer stuff that they think looks like cheating.

Answer 35

I don't disagree that there maybe ought to be a different method of assessment, I just haven't seen it yet (I have seen quite a lot of research on it).

Answer 36

And again, I encourage you to mention the first time you run across something like that from a user that hey, maybe they should try to learn; it will help them in the long run. For the most part, when people have been polite about that, I've seen generally neutral-to-positive reactions.

But once you get to the point where you've already told them once or twice, the only thing that happens if you keep harping on the point is you frustrate them, you frustrate yourself, and you're wasting time on someone who *doesn't* want to learn rather than helping someone who might :)

Naturally it's your time, so you can do whatever you want with it. Our goal is just to foster a polite environment insofar as possible, given the age range we have on the site.

Answer 37

Estudier brings up a good point. If openstudy is viewed as purely an answer machine it is going to be bad for the image of the site and things could get out of hand quickly.

I agree with Fiend though. We have to be realistic in addition to having idealism. Idealism says we should disregard answer-seekers, but realism says that there is no distinct line between answer seekers and knowledge seekers. And it also says that answer seekers build the community and draw in knowledge seekers.

The answer is a middle ground somehow. We have to find a way to accept the answer seekers and somehow try to still encourage the best possible learning environment.

Answer 38

But my original point stands that if people don't find answers here, it's not like they're not going to find answers. They'll just find them somewhere where the philosophy probably isn't as positive. We know our philosophy, we want to keep people here so we can guide them in the right direction. It may not happen overnight, but we believe that as we improve the game mechanics and such of the site, it will improve.

Answer 39

If you actually looked at all the threads, I think you will find that everybody from here was more than polite.

Which was not the case for those from "there".

Answer 40

Eh. The problem with politeness is it's age-dependent. By which I mean, a 15-year-old tends to be more sensitive, and text is a very inflectionless and therefore misunderstanding-prone medium. I could see both where the original posters were being polite and where the students were not seeing that.

I also know that a couple of those users had been harassed a lot about the same thing yesterday -- which I'm aware you couldn't have known.

Answer 41

I understand "stickiness" and I do not agree with your assessment and only partly because a tech fix is not the solution.

Answer 42

I don't think a tech fix is the entire solution at all. But I think it can be an important part of it. One example is, tests tend to be time-limited. We're thinking about making it so that brand new users, at least, can only post so many questions in a certain time period.

Answer 43

I would love to be able to have video chat and white board options to help tutor.

Answer 44

We don't fix the problem entirely that way, but we remove some of the optimality for the first-timer who is also an exam-taker.

Answer 45

That's not true, Estudiar. Peoples' behaviors are definitely influenced by reward systems, even if it's a stupid number on your screen.

If learning well is rewarded, people will want to do it.

Answer 46

I did post one thought I had which was to insist on "neophytes" (who I agree may not actually be such) being answered only by lifesavers or other neophytes.

Answer 47

Hmm. I hadn't seen that one, actually. That's very interesting.

Answer 48

Ew. I hate that idea.

Answer 49

The trouble with that is, we do want newcomers to get help.

Answer 50

And really damn good help, if they want it.

Answer 51

Again, one thing we're trying to do is optimize for the positive use of the site. We are very loath to make a good user's life harder in order to desperately try to win the unwinnable battle against a cheater.

Answer 52

I mean... I want to give really damn good help to whoever is interested in it. If it's a neophyte who is interested in it, then I want to give it to them regardless of my ranking or theirs.

Answer 53

Yeah, definitely. Love the attitude :) That's exactly the kind of thought process we're coming from.

Answer 54

What if there were verified members that were educators that could have more weight?

Answer 55

That's also a good idea. Or beyond verified educators, just people who are considered valuable in the community, where we at OpenStudy can explicitly mark them as such. Maybe once you get to a certain rank *or* an OpenStudy staff member marks you as a valuable member, your medals are worth more.

Answer 56

A keen neophyte will not stay neophyte for long....

I wasn't saying not to do tech fixes, just that they won't work alone.

Answer 57

i also think an option for one on one interaction of some sort would be nice

Answer 58

Yeah, fully agree on that front.

Answer 59

"Badging" is not a bad idea, mentor, educator, whatever...

Answer 60

One thing is we want to avoid a hierarchy that isn't purely site-merit-based as much as possible. We've built a system where over a certain amount of time (usually a period of a couple of weeks), the bad retricehelpers earn higher ranks than most others. I think that, combined with some prudent oversight from moderators who can demark the best users before they even get to that rank, is a better way to go.

Answer 61

Sort of an extension to the +1 mentality.

Answer 62

One on one is something that's been on our to-do list for a while. It's not a priority because we want to get the community aspect nailed down. We're also playing with some other ideas that will let you team up with other members to answer questions and get bonuses.

Answer 63

what about integrating google plus haha

Answer 64

you could tutor 9 people at once via video chat

Answer 65

Basically we want to make sure to maintain the emphasis on peer to peer. As soon as you call someone an educator, equality is basically out the window, and students feel intimidated. Ideally, we want vocabulary (mentor is a great word in this regard, I think) that emphasizes that you are equals in general, but this person can help you.

Answer 66

I have tried doing video tutoring, it is a right pain....

Answer 67

I use `equality' -- that's not really right. Just that you are peers.

Answer 68

And it's been working -- we've had college profs, retired aerospace guys, and 16 year olds helping. It's awesome.

Answer 69

I think separate student/teacher ranks would do a lot for the site.

Good teachers would be recognized as such and gain real value in the community.

Good students would be more attractive to the best teachers, and as such, students would have a desire to learn well.

Answer 70

Yes, well peers has some gradation in a p2p file sharing set up.

Grab and go, seeders, etc.

Answer 71

You're right that video tutoring kind of blows. I'd love something that involved voice and a digital chalkboard though.

Answer 72

how about vote up/vote down option like on youtube?

Answer 73

We actually do have some goodness in the works in the world of chalk/whiteboard. Though it's something that will fit better into the conversational style of the site, so it won't be real time.

Answer 74

there are some whiteboards w/ chat options out there already

Answer 75

Vote up/down is not a bad idea at all. Lots of sites use that to great effect, I feel.

Answer 76

Yeah, usually it's chat attached to a whiteboard, though. We want to see what happens if we make drawings a part of a conversation. You'll see it when it gets out, we'd love to hear feedback once we put it up.

Answer 77

i hate a tablet i use for whiteboards

Answer 78

If u could quickly draw something, I think that would be excellent.

Answer 79

typing math is not fun

Answer 80

like matrices,,,

Answer 81

i have to say, i like this site so much better than ziizoo or any other tutoring site

Answer 82

That's another thing we want to improve -- fractions and matrices in equations. So many features :/

Answer 83

Yeah, I tend to start off answering a question by wanting to draw a picture. It's a pain to actually make one up and attach it.

Answer 84

well that's how any of us who are tutors tutor irl

Answer 85

Yeah, fully agree. We know that pain point for sure; just a matter of juggling so many different ideas.

Answer 86

100% . +1 for drawing stuff.....

Answer 87

I can draw a matrix faster than I can latex it.

Answer 88

i can probably solve one in my head fast than i can latex it

Answer 89

Hehe. I want to fix that, too. Make it so you can do \ [(1 & 2 & 3 \ 4 & 5 & 6)\ ] and you get a magical matrix.

Answer 90

i can't do latex to save my life

Answer 91

Yeah, that's technically not LaTeX hehe. I want to make it so you can input that and it converts it into that wonderfully nasty matrix environment stuff.

Answer 92

satellite was showing me one day at school..he was like "it's so easy"

Answer 93

Oh, cool. You go to school with Satellite? Where at?

Answer 94

he was my precalc prof a few years ago, but we're buds now

Answer 95

Haha awesome.

Answer 96

That is truly cool.

Answer 97

oh another good option would be a "follow this" button..sometimes i don't want updates from everything ive posted on

Answer 98

Right, so basically a way to disable notifications on a question you've replied to?