Grade Guru: Feedback

 

Some of you may remember that last month I did a post about the website Grade Guru – the note-sharing website which compiles notes made by students (more beneficial to the LLB students rather than LPC/BVC).

In my previous post I (along with people who commented on my post) were questioning the service, mainly with regards to how it works, usefulness and plagiarism.

Today I got a comment on the original post from the founder of grade guru, so I thought I’d bring it to everyone’s attention as I know it will be of interest to a few people who read my blog.

The comment was as follows:

Travis, thanks for checking out GradeGuru and blogging about us. My name is Emily Sawtell and I am the founder of GradeGuru. I wanted to take this opportunity to answer a few of your questions (and those of your commenters as well). GradeGuru operates in the UK and US and this semester we saw a significant increase of notes coming from Law Students. Of course, it is still early days for our community so we’re relying on thought leaders like you to share your knowledge with the rest of the community. Currently you get points for each set of notes you upload based on the quality of the notes (1-5 stars). The quality is determined by a team of peer reviewers that work internally with GradeGuru. After 3-5 days from the time of upload, you will receive a set of points that you can then redeem on the MyRewards page for cash and other prizes. We’re working towards developing new functionality to allow you to demonstrate your thought leadership based on your contributions and activity on the site.

GradeGuru has taken a strong stance against plagiarism by partnering with TurnItIn.com, the leading anti-plagiarism tool and the platform chosen overwhelmingly by academic institutions for ensuring originality in students’ work. If students were to attempt to submit materials from GradeGuru as their own for a course that uses TurnItIn, that material would be flagged as unoriginal. Furthermore, our site is stamped with the "Protected by TurnItIn" logo. This badge sends a strong signal to students about what they can and cannot do with GradeGuru resources and is a significant deterrent from unethical use of the site - our research supports the notion that students understand the seriousness of plagiarism and the implications of getting caught.

Emily Sawtell,

emily_sawtell@mcgraw-hill.com