Describe the problem you'd like to solve
Although the internet has made academic research a lot easier than it used to be, you are often at the mercy of what pops up on your search engine, as the material can vary significantly in quality. Google Scholar allows you to look for the most cited articles, but these won't necessarily be the most relevant or accurate.
This means if you want to teach yourself about a topic, it can be very difficult. Universities help students by providing bibliographies, or reading lists. These are curated by experts in their fields and, I would argue, are a large part of what makes some universities better than others. They can also be restricting - academics and universities often suggest their own work, ignoring others.
What if, then, you could go to some kind of glorious website where you could browse different reading lists? You could find out all the reading lists that Harvard offers for their English modules, or all the books that Stephen Hawking recommended to his Physics students.
The website would essentially be a resource sharing application, where students and academics upload copies of their university reading lists (or perhaps invent their own). Although you would still need access to the books and articles themselves, I believe this demystifying of what knowledge 'is' would go a long way to democratising knowledge.
Who are the stakeholders?
Students, academics, and anyone involved in the academic / university sphere. But also anyone who wants to learn.
What is currently being done to solve this problem?
Oxford currently has a brilliant curated resource for certain academic topics: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/
But it only looks at certain topics, and the lists are restricted in scope. What if I could find any reading list, anywhere?
Name Freddie Preece
Describe the problem you'd like to solve Although the internet has made academic research a lot easier than it used to be, you are often at the mercy of what pops up on your search engine, as the material can vary significantly in quality. Google Scholar allows you to look for the most cited articles, but these won't necessarily be the most relevant or accurate.
This means if you want to teach yourself about a topic, it can be very difficult. Universities help students by providing bibliographies, or reading lists. These are curated by experts in their fields and, I would argue, are a large part of what makes some universities better than others. They can also be restricting - academics and universities often suggest their own work, ignoring others.
What if, then, you could go to some kind of glorious website where you could browse different reading lists? You could find out all the reading lists that Harvard offers for their English modules, or all the books that Stephen Hawking recommended to his Physics students.
The website would essentially be a resource sharing application, where students and academics upload copies of their university reading lists (or perhaps invent their own). Although you would still need access to the books and articles themselves, I believe this demystifying of what knowledge 'is' would go a long way to democratising knowledge.
Who are the stakeholders? Students, academics, and anyone involved in the academic / university sphere. But also anyone who wants to learn.
What is currently being done to solve this problem? Oxford currently has a brilliant curated resource for certain academic topics: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/
But it only looks at certain topics, and the lists are restricted in scope. What if I could find any reading list, anywhere?