wePapers: sharing knowledge

wePapers is a social network product focused on sharing and expanding knowledge from subjects on a university level. Googling, I found out that wePapers is the outcome of two Israeli students who started this idea from their own experiences in college.

Learners and tutors -as well as students and teachers ;)- can:

• upload, share, rate and download academic material, organized by subject, language and institution. This academic material can range from class notes to exams, articles, essays or cheatsheets!
• read documents within the browser (like Scribd).
• collaborate and discuss on materials through their built-in messaging system:

Once you sign up for free you can start uploading or browsing materials:

I delved into “English Language and Literature” and I downloaded M. Purland’s Big Activity Book: 95 worksheets for English lessons (intermediate) and TOEFL Secrets, in which I can read a footnote that says: “any other reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited”…And yet we do redistribute. That kind of legal notice hinders 2.0 social sharing…which, by the way, no one can stop. Who can close the spigot? Wait, it doesn’t  actually hinder 2.0 social sharing but knowledge. Period.

Then I tried with “engineering” (I teach engineering undergrads) and there are hundreds of resources from different institutions, such as UCLA, Harvard, MIT or Duisburg-Esen (by the way, none of them in Spanish or from Spanish institutions. Too bad. Same old story I guess. I think wePapers beats ElRincondelVago or Patatabrava). I’m going to email my groups and encourage them to start uploading resources in Spanish, English or any other language to wePapers.

Tricky issues:

• Copyright notices, as usual. Also plagiarism (and I don’t mean C&P without quoting but handing in papers which aren’t yours).
• Separating signal from noise.

[wePapers via Twine Digest]