Docsity
| File:Docsity Logo.png | |
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
Type of site | Social Software |
| Available in | English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian |
| Founded | Turin, Italy (Jan 2010) |
| Headquarters | Turin, Italy |
| Key people | Riccardo Oceleppo (CEO, co-founder), Corrado Pastore (CTO, co-founder), Emiliano Mancini (CIO, co-founder) |
| Services | Social reading, publishing and sharing platform |
| URL | http://www.docsity.com |
| Current status | Active |
Docsity is an online social-learning network for worldwide university students. Originally launched in 2010 exclusively for Italian students, it became in late 2011 an international website by opening to worldwide students, with a particular focus on India, United States and United Kingdom.
Docsity is characterized by being advertisement free and user generated. Its main functionality consists of;
- Document sharing: students can share their study notes and all their university-related documents for other students to view and download.
- Networking: it allows students to create their own "student network" through friendships, interaction on each other's walls and notifications on friends' activities.
- News and Blogs: students can read various articles on everyday student life and become authors by submitting blog posts.
- Video sharing: students can share and catalog academic videos from Youtube or upload their own videos for other students to view.
- Q & A section: students from around the world can interact and help one another by answering questions and voting others contributions.
History
Docsity started as an initiative by two boys from Turin, Italy who were displeased by the amount of time a student had to spend on finding the correct study notes for any course. This was a very common issue with university and college students. Trying to address the problem, they started Docsity.com where students could share and view notes for free and also could discuss about them with one another. The idea was greatly appreciated by the education community in Italy[1] and later La Stampa, the most influential Italian daily newspaper mentioned Docsity.com[2] as the fastest growing social network of students.
Features
Docsity presents a number of features to its users for academic learning and knowledge sharing. It has around 300,000+ study notes shared by students, 200,000+ Questions and Answers, 500+ published articles, 10,000+ academic videos and 500,000+ students from universities all around the world.
Technology
Docsity offers its users to upload, download and share notes (including .doc, .pdf, .ppt and popular image formats). Its Q & A section allows students to ask questions, answer questions, vote, rate and comment on the answers. The Video[3] section offers videos cataloged or uploaded by students and can be searched by Subject, Course and Type. The News and Blog section contains news articles by university students on numerous topics related to education and everyday student life. The website offers a star rating and comments feature on all its content for the users for their feedback. These ratings are used to rank the content in the charts. Above all, being a social learning network, Docsity allows users to post on walls, reply to comments, request friendships, search users from specific universities and areas of interest. The user base not only consists of students from universities and colleges, it also caters faculty members, company professionals and formal students.
Points System
Docsity is absolutely free to use but in order to increase the users' contribution, it has a Points Management System [4]. The users are awarded points for sharing content and contributing to Docsity. These points are used to download content and gain reputation on the website, hence fostering the idea of sharing knowledge. The points distribution is as following:
| Activity | Points |
|---|---|
| Registration | +3 Once |
| Upload your profile picture | +2 Once |
| Upload your Study Notes and Documents | +3 each doc shared |
| Answer questions from other students | +1 each answer |
| Answer chosen as best | +3 every best answer |
| Post on the Docsity's blog | +7 each blog post published |
| Categorize an Academic Video from Youtube | +1 each video cataloged |
| Upload your own video | +5 each video uploaded |
| Invite your friends on Docsity | +3 for every friend who register |
References
- ^ Marco Ferrando. "Facoltà DI CLICCARE". Il Sole 24 Ore (in Italian). Il Sole 24 Ore.
- ^ Alessandra C. "Web mistress". La Stampa (in Italian). Italy: LaStampa.
- ^ "Videos :Docsity.com". Docsity.com.
- ^ "Points Management System". Docsity.com.