We’ve just released the GradeGuru Link List- a time-saving tool for instructors and students alike. Instructors can easily create annotated reading lists with a single shortened URL to share with their students. Students can then access the assignment with one simple link. If you are working in a group and want to share a bunch of links with your comments, or save a set of online favorites with your notes for a paper that you might use later, just create a Link List, capturing the URLs as you go and Link List will provide a single destination URL.

How to install and use:

• Go to gradeguru.com/tools
• Make sure your Bookmarks Toolbar is visible
• Drag the Link List icon up to your Bookmarks Toolbar
• Start aggregating your links as you browse the web

Watch our Video Tutorial:

GradeGuru Link List from the GradeGuru Team on Vimeo

Our panel discussion titled - The Future of Social Media in Higher Education, was a huge success!

The event helped add to the ongoing discussion regarding Social Media and Academia. The panelist offered invaluable insight on where they currently see the Higher Education landscape and where they see academia going with the increased usage of Social Media.

The event kicked off with a special introduction by Social Media Week founder Toby Daniels.

Emphasized throughout the event was the need for student engagement in academia. The panelist stressed the importance of engaging with students and creating a social interaction that goes beyond the  current forms of communication established by universities today.

Live coverage was available via UStream and Twitter- where the audience actively followed and commented on the discussion.

Guest also gained insight into some of the tools being developed by the McGraw-Hill Student Innovations Lab.

Those who were not able to attend the event can access the video coverage here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-future-of-social-media-in-higher-education-mcgraw-hill-digital-innovation-showcase

Thanks to all those who attended and a special thanks to our panelist:

• Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com
• Dr. Kathleen P. King, professor at Fordham University and president of Transformation Education LLC
• Greg Verdino, VP strategy & solutions at Powered and author of microMARKETING
• Mary Casey, New York University student and founder of Jatched.com
• Vineet Madan, VP strategy & business development at McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Our founder Emily Sawtell, recently contributed to Dan Northern’s CollegeThrive.com where she shared her insight on how students can leverage the internet to boost their grades and ensure academic success.

Want to learn what resources are available to help you achieve high grades? Check out the full post here: http://collegethrive.com/use-the-web-to-boost-your-gpa

The Second Annual Social Media Week Conferences are taking place this week and we’re excited to announce that we will be joining this week’s list of New York events. Our panel discussion titled - The Future of Social Media in Higher Education, will host education technology, social media and popular technology bloggers for an hour discussion on the trends of technology and social media in education.

WHEN: Friday February 5th at 12:00pm EST

WHERE: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1221 Avenue of The Americas, Auditorium

• REGISTER TO ATTEND
• Can’t attend? Check out our LIVESTREAM
• Participate via Twitter: #smwmcgraw

The Future of Social Media in Higher Education event will help to answer:

How is social media changing the way college students learn? How are digital applications changing how professors teach? What are the most significant education technology trends of 2010 and beyond?

The event will feature education technology and emerging media experts to explore how the social web is transforming higher education. The event will also feature a preview of highly anticipated products from the McGraw-Hill Student Innovation Lab.

The panel will feature:

Adam Ostrow Editor in Chief, Mashable.com

Dr. Kathleen P. King Professor, Fordham University; President, Transformation Education LLC

Greg Verdino VP Strategy & Solutions, Powered; author of microMARKETING

Mary Casey NYU Student and Founder of Jatched.com

Vineet Madan VP Strategy & Business Development, McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Yianni Garcia (Moderator) Marketing Specialist, GradeGuru.com

The folks over at Unigo and WSJ on Campus recently included two of our Silver Gurus in their article titled “How to Pick the Right Classes” where students weighed in on how they learned to go about picking the right classes and what the best strategies for doing so are.

Here’s what our Gurus had to say:

“Take classes that you’re interested in! If you don’t like the material, then you will regret it, and you probably won’t do as well. You can probably find classes that you are at least semi-interested in to fill even your most dreaded requirements. For example, I had to fulfill a science requirement, and to do that, I took a human evolution and disease class, which was absolutely fascinating. And despite the fact that science was never my best subject, I did so well in that class because I was so interested.”

-Kaylin Dalrymple, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Using online resources like GradeGuru can be very helpful when looking into a course. Just as with anything else in life, if you have an idea of what you’re about to get into, you’ll understand it so much better. It’s like following directions: if you can review the directions and a map before you begin your trip, you find it a lot easier to navigate throughout, rather than having a GPS yell, ‘merge left NOW!’ when you’re in the far right lane on an eight-lane highway.”

-Erica DeVasier, Indiana University Bloomington

For the full article and for more tips on picking the right classes visit: How to Pick the Right Classes

Open content tools which started out as a small trend amongst a niche group of college students are increasing in popularity this year.

At GradeGuru we are witnessing a rise in student collaboration as more and more students take an active role in their education.

Open content tools that allow for this form of collaboration are likely to go mainstream this coming year as recently reported by Wired Campus.

EDUCAUSE and The New Media Consortium recently released their 2010 Horizon report offering insight into some of the technological changes occurring this year that are shifting the academic landscape.

What started as an academic movement spurred on by the MIT Open Courseware initiative has rapidly flowed into the student realm. The much talked about concept of “free” has come of age. Coupled with social networking, this has enormous potential to change the way students learn and expect to learn.

The introduction of tools like Google Wave, while yet to be fully introduced in an educational context is proving to have enormous potential in student collaboration and access to educational content -Google Wave’s functionality allows students to discuss and share videos and files all in real time . Professors are also beginning to explore the idea of Google Wave in the scope of academia.

A small subset of institutions are seeing the growth in open access tools and are adapting their current models accordingly.  For example,  Tufts University has begun offering learning material online free of charge.  In addition to this, Open universities such as University of the People, a tuition-free online academic institution, are leveraging technology in the educational sphere by offering students the opportunity to access educational content for free.

Not only are students finding free expert content available online, they are also creating their own content, sharing it, collaborating and in many cases reaping multiple benefits – shared knowledge, peer-review and encouragement, increasing their confidence as they work with and engage with their peers, and even financial rewards and career advantages.

GradeGuru was just featured on CollegeThrive a site focused on providing students with tips and resources to help them better prepare and manage university life.

GradeGuru was cited as a great resource to find course materials.

The post highlights some of GradeGuru’s key features including inviting your friends and classmates to join as well as earning rewards for your contributions to the community.

We know how hard it can be to land the job you want. For this reason, we created the Guru Careers Program

The Guru Careers Program will connect Silver and Gold Gurus with recruiters from companies and organizations looking for top students.

How it works?

• If you’re a Gold or Silver Guru, you will receive monthly newsletters with job opportunities in your field (first email coming next week)
• If you’re interested in any of them just email us with your resume and we will connect you to the representative from that particular organization
• Your resume along with your GradeGuru profile will serve as an academic portfolio for employers to reference

We’ll be reaching out to our top gurus with formal internships and full time job opportunities through our corporate partners across various majors including:

• Business
• Communications
• English
• Sales
• IT, IS and Web Technologies

Is there a company or organization you think we should outreach for the Guru Careers Program? Email our Guru Careers Specialist Angela Santiago with the names of the companies and we’ll make sure to let them know about our program and the pool of talented candidates at GradeGuru.

Not a Gold or Silver Guru? Not to worry… Keep uploading and sharing your study materials and you’ll be a top Guru in no time.

We’ve just released new course pages just in time for the spring semester!

Course Pages will now support our University Specific Pages by helping you easily find all notes for specific courses at your school.

How it works?

• Visit any university specific page (e.g. Cornell University)
• Click on the subject you need notes for
• Click on your course
• Access all notes uploaded for that specific course

By clicking on a specific course, you are automatically taken to the course page, making it easier for you to access all the notes available for your course.

More updates to come!!

GradeGuru was mentioned in a recent article published by the Boston Globe titled “FreeHarvardEducation.com: Does anyone own what universities teach?” Reporter Drake Bennett discussed the constant debate on the rise of academic content going online.

GradeGuru is referred to as one of the sites fostering the rise in student note-sharing along with other sites that are bringing university content to the internet. Much of the concern brought up throughout the article dealt with the notion of copyright infringement of professor lecture material, where comparisons were made to the digitization of music and its effect on the music industry.

GradeGuru is a social learning network that aids students in their academic coursework. GradeGuru facilitates student collaboration outside of the classroom context by providing a platform for university and class specific knowledge sharing. A key differentiators between GradeGuru and other sites:

1. We ensure that all materials on the site are original student work and not borrowed content from professors or publications by making sure that each set of notes is peer reviewed by our team of site content moderators before posting live
2. We protect student’s content from plagiarism by partnering with TurnItIn, the leading plagiarism prevention tool.
3. We created an Academic Committee to help us get an academic perspective and continuously work with them on our site developments

Nonetheless, the debate about whether students should be sharing their academic work is an ongoing one. Here are what two of the professors quoted in the article had to say:

“There’s nothing that I would say in class that I wouldn’t say in any other public forum, so I kind of had nothing to hide,” Steven Pinker cognitive scientist, Harvard University

“Listening to lectures and taking your own notes is part of the educational process,” Greg Mankiw economist professor, Harvard University

For the full article: “FreeHarvardEducation.com: Does anyone own what universities teach?”