Docsity
 | |
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
Type of site | Social learning (social pedagogy) |
| Available in | English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Serbian, Russian, Polish |
| Founded |
Turin, Italy (Jan 2010) |
| Headquarters | Turin, Italy |
| Key people | Riccardo Ocleppo (CEO, Founder) |
| Services | Social reading, publishing and sharing platform |
| Website | http://www.docsity.com |
| Alexa rank |
 36477 (April 2013)[1] |
| Launched | June 2011 |
| Current status | Active |
Docsity is an online Social learning (social pedagogy) network for worldwide students and professionals. Originally launched in 2010 exclusively for Italian students, it became an international website in mid-2012 by opening to worldwide students. It is advertisement-free and user-generated. Its features include document sharing, networking, news and blogs, video sharing, and a question and answer section.
Docsity provides targeted content and user experience adaptations to users coming from Italy, United States, United Kingdom, Balkans, Spain, South America, Russia, Brazil, Poland, Portugal and Portuguese speaking countries.
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 them with one another. The idea was greatly appreciated by the education community in Italy[2] and later La Stampa called Docsity the fastest growing social network of students.[3] After the success in Italy it launched worldwide in June 2012.
Features
- Document sharing: students can share their study notes and all their university-related documents for other students to search, view and download.
- Networking: it help students to meet with other students through friendships, have fun studying, interact on each other's walls and get 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.
Docsity has around 300,000+ study notes shared by students, 400,000+ Questions and Answers, 500+ published articles, 2,000+ academic videos and 500,000+ university students(Unofficial figures).
Technology
Docsity allows its users to upload, download and share notes (including .doc, .pdf, .ppt and popular image formats). Its question and answer section allows students to ask and answer questions, and to vote, rate and comment on the answers. The video section offers videos catalogued or uploaded by students and can be searched by subject, course and type.[4] 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. 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, but also faculty members, company professionals and formal students. Docsity takes studying to a new social level, Study 2.0, the YouTube video[5] gives a visual introduction to all the features that Docsity offers.
Points system
Docsity is free to use, but in order to increase the users' contributions it has a points management system.[6] Users are awarded points for sharing content and contributing to Docsity. These points are used to download content and gain a reputation on the website.
References
- ↑ "Docsity.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ "Study 2.0, Move on with Docsity". Youtube.com.
- ↑ "Points Management System". Docsity.com.