We would be very grateful if you could vote here to help us go for the top prize. You’d be really helping us at Reference Tree on our mission to create smarter ways to learn. It takes 30 seconds to vote and rest assured, you don’t need to give any details.

We are building up to launch our online service in September this year, enabling students to buy digital textbooks by the chapter. If you’d like to find out more about our business, please do read the intro on our homepage at reference-tree.com.

I found this page on Facebook, it had 21,100 fans (far more than many degree related pages), and many of the comments on it were about exam stress, a lack of engagement in subject matter AND most concerningly a view that the degree is lacking in value.

This should be a wake up call for all those who value and care about higher education. It is not a sufficient response to say “Bah Students are never satisfied!” -  and I am sure that there will be those who will remark in this way.

The key, to my mind is to understand what underlies these negative thoughts and rather than brushing them off. To seek to challenge ourselves as providers, supporters and advocates of tertiary education to understand them.

The idea that “We shall build it and they will come” was appropriate previously but in the current and future digital environment where students link up via tools such as friendfeed, facebook and twitter, and have access to more information on courses and universities than institutions could possibly marshall, there is a need to understand the needs of the student body in terms of learning style and engagement.

In no way do we advocate the simplification of subjects, materials or the intellectual challenge which are key reasons why we study what we study. It is our responsibility to understand how technology can be adopted and adapted, not just through the use of Virtual Learning Environments or ejournal platforms, but fundamentally into how courses are designed, presented and assessed.

The approach (and this, to us at Reference Tree, is non-negotiable) must hold the concept of reading for a degree as an intellectual and academic exploration of a subject at its core. Studying the why leads to enhanced understanding and new techniques and approaches, studying the how leads to repetition and perhaps some refinement.

Within the UK Higher Education space there are frustrations, and pages such as this one provide an insight into the thoughts of students about their course as they happen rather than after the fact proxy analysis based on exam results.

Our suggestion is to not only rely on satisfaction surveys or polls but to ask the question “Do we really know the level of engagement of students on their courses?” and answer it through supplementing formal attitudinal research with the less formal, more freeflowing and in many cases more accurate attitude barometers represented by the page above.

While sitting at the table at a very good Mexican fast food joint in Angel, I was munching into their delicious totopos (Tortilla chips with beans, cheese, roasted vegetables, guacamole…) while discussing the fascinating world of Eyes.

Our discussion centred on the importance of continuous learning and education. Although my friend, (and champion and supporter – Thank You!) had just successfully completed a set of qualifying exams she had already started to consider how to continuously up her skills and knowledge levels.

Whilst there are those whose reaction to the completion of professional exams is a big sigh of relief, it’s those whose thirst for knowledge is only partially parched that will go on to lead their field.

So how to quench this thirst?

The thought we had was as follows, to share the knowledge gained with a motivated group of professionals who can all contribute their brain power to investigate and diagnose conditions whilst continuing their professional education. The mechanics of this and the tools needed are everywhere from the required discussion fora to the means to share imagery and run conference calls. All that is required are the motivated professionals whose views of the field go beyond their consulting rooms.

This approach is not just limited to one field…so if you know of any successful models in this vein (sorry) then email us at info@reference-tree.com

To share knowledge is the learn from it, to learn from knowledge to is develop and through developing one can find new avenues and thoughts to further enhance one’s knowledge.

Collaboration, discussion, knowledge sharing = the new continuing professional development.

….would be a lot harder if it was easy

Reference Tree has been growing over the past few weeks and months, and with it I (amil) have been growing too. From a team of 1 we now have about 8 working full/part time on the Reference Tree. Each one has talent and skills beyond what I bring to the party!

Each day is a new challenge and learning experience, (which is good given we are an Education company).

If I got a dollar for each time someone said to me, “running your own company, why would you do something like that?” I would have a few dollars rolling around my pockets. But why do I do something difficult?

Because its the choice I choose to make.

Its your call every time. Do you do the easy thing, not look for the game changing opportunity, continue that work around because thinking of a new way to do it just is too much effort, or do you take the challenge and work to make what you see as the right way happen?

Interestingly – the question arises, if you take the easy way, and the alternative is to try a little harder, do you get to increase your moaning rights?

I bet many a person would get indignant that they can’t increase their moaning rights….let them, just don’t let them see the big yellow ear plugs you are wearing…

Enjoy and relish the challenges for one day you will be challenged no more.

Reference Tree started 2010 well with great strides forward in all aspects of the business. We are working towards preparing for the year the Reference Tree goes live.

Our development team are working away, and we are setting out our marketing plans.

To give you a heads up we will be piloting in April 2010, with our launch in time for the 2010/2011 Academic Year.

As we make progress and sign up our Publisher Partners and make great leaps forward we will keep you updated.

We have chosen to develop a web based model, without, at this stage, a downloadable reader. This is because having studied the complexity and the usability of the current readers, there is a little way to go before they become as efficient and useful as we would like.

Now we are focussing on the usability of our site, and to support this are carrying out a wide Student User survey, across multiple campuses and subjects. Once we have completed the user survey we will embark on paper prototyping moving on to HTML prototyping and design of the core pages.

Throughout we will be working with members of our key stakeholders (Students and Lecturers). We will post more information here as we progress our technology build

Currently we are speaking with a range of universities across the UK and as we develop these partnerships we will post more details

As we sign deals and make progress we will put the info up here!