We are pleased to announced our latest round of updates for GradeGuru. Today we’ve optimized several functionalities to help you upload your notes quicker and easier, find the best and most relevant notes and protect your content. Here’s what’s new:

• Search Functionality Updates: In addition to being able to find files by university, discipline area and specific topics, you can now search for notes for a specific course or by username, professor or textbook. We also have a series of new filters and sort functions to refine your results. Happy hunting!

• File upload Functionality Updates: Based on user requests, we’ve optimized our file upload functionality to allow multiple file upload. You can now upload up to 50 files at once! Upload your notes from an entire semester in one hit – we’ve made it quicker and easier to share your knowledge and maximize your rewards.

• Site protection: We’ve partnered with TurnItIn, the leading anti-plagiarism tool, to ensure the safety of our user’s contributions . We are thrilled to be officially “Protected by TurnItIn”, and being able to provide our users and academics with an ethically sound platform.

• New FAQ Page: got a question about the site? It is now easier to find answers in our new FAQ Page.

Feel free to email us or reach out to us via Twitter if you have any additional questions or feedback. We’ll love to hear from you!

Emily Sawtell, GradeGuru.com founder, was interviewed by News Channel 8 – Washington, DC.

Credit: Maria Raffaele/Art Staff at The Tartan

The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon’s student newspaper, published an article about GradeGuru today titled, “notes making money”

“As a recent start-up, GradeGuru’s current focus is on collecting notes and rewarding its contributors with money for their notes to lay the foundation for their vision of a web 2.0 version of a study group — a collaborative learning experience online.”

“According to Carnegie Mellon student Aleksey Tigay, a junior in business administration and GradeGuru representative, ‘GradeGuru provides more ways to search and look up notes. It also places an emphasis on quality of notes so students know that they information they are receiving is going to be beneficial.’”

“A quality that separates GradeGuru from similar sites is its partnership with TurnItIn.com, a plagiarism prevention service. The GradeGuru site promises to provide students with an ‘ethically sound platform for collaborative learning.’

LINK: http://thetartan.org/2009/3/30/news/notes

During an interview about GradeGuru, Dr. Keith Hampson, founder of the Higher Education Management group, asked Emily Sawtell the following questions:

1. As I suggested in a previous post, your business model requires that much of the curriculum being taught at universities be common. Otherwise, the number of other students that can use the uploaded notes is highly limited. Is this an accurate assumption?
2. In a recent news story, an academic suggested that note-sharing is ethically questionable. Another wondered if it violated intellectual property standards. How does GradeGuru address these potential problems?
3. Trust is a major factor when deciding to share notes. When I borrowed notes in college (often), I didn’t ask ‘just anyone”: I selected someone I knew to be a good student (invariably a women). How can GradeGuru facilitate trust amongst its users?
4. What led you to this current role with GradeGuru?

To read the responses to the interview questions, click the link below…

LINK: Higher Education Management Blog – Interview responses

This week we had the pleasure of presenting at the Information Systems Society meeting at New York University. We talked about GradeGuru and our ethnographic research into student learning behavior, our business model and the technology platform for the site. Students from the Entrepreneurial Exchange Group and the Marketing Society at Stern college also attended the presentation. Everyone asked great questions and were very interested in the operational aspect of the site and future monetization strategies.

We’d like to thank Paola, Ajay, Caroline and the rest of the ISS e-board for making this possible. Stay tune for a video of the presentation…COMING SOON! Also make sure to check out Caroline’s college street fashion blog – www.street-spotted.com

More about ISS

The Information Systems Society (ISS) is the premier extracurricular resource for Stern undergraduate students interested in technology. Their goal is to assist in the professional development of members in a social and friendly atmosphere. They achieve this goal by forging close relationships with members and potential employers through numerous activities, such as tutorials, social events, information sessions, professional events and corporate mingles.

John Fahy, marketing professor and acclaimed author, interviews Emily Sawtell, GradeGuru founder, about the inspiration and research behind the site.

Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance featured GradeGuru on her blog, Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day. Jane’s blog features daily posts regarding e-learning technologies and is a wonderful resource for staying informed with the latest developments in the world of web 2.0 and education. Below is an excerpt from her post about GradeGuru:

“GradeGuru.com is a note sharing platform for college students to share notes, give each other feedback and engage in collaborative learning. We’re also providing students with cash and rewards for their notes because we believe students should earn for sharing their knowledge. Our vision is to create a community of students who can rely on each other for academic support – whether through the feedback they receive on the notes that they contribute, or the ability to download their peers’ notes for free. We are setting out to build a network where students can learn online in a way that is specific to their course at their university – the web 2.0 version of a study group. GradeGuru is a McGraw-Hill Education start-up that was developed based on extensive ethnographic research with students across the UK and US.”

Thanks Jane for your support in advancing open access learning!

In the article, “Note-sharing Web site hopes to expand to IU”, The Indiana Daily Student reviews GradeGuru and how it’s being perceived by students and academics at Indiana University. The article also features interviews with two GradeGuru student ambassadors from Indiana University, GradeGuru’s founder and Robert Arnove, the chancellor’s professor emeritus in the School of Education. Below are some quotes from the interviews:

“It’s not so much a substitute for going to class, as there is not really any substitute,” junior Erica DeVasier said. “It’s more of a way to share the notes you took from discussion if you were not clear on the material.”

“Part of the value of education comes from social interactions on campus with professors and students,” Robert Arnove, the chancellor’s professor emeritus in the School of Education, said. Although Arnove has been a retired professor for seven years, he said he understands that online note-sharing cannot substitute for the classroom experience.

Sophomore Travis Vaughn, also a GradeGuru brand manager, brings his job into the classroom by working on co-op marketing techniques with professors. “Some (professors) see it as a collaborative learning opportunity, and some see it as a substitute for class,” Vaughn said. “But a lot are opening up to it.”

“Education is my passion,” Sawtell said. “I am one of those people who believe education is ‘the answer’ – mostly just for creating sustainable economic growth, but the answer to how to build a more just society, a more socially mobile and cohesive society.”

LINK: http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=66590&comview=1