A new online network aimed at providing students with study resources was launched in February by a group of recent graduate students.

The site, UniversityJunction, acts as a virtual study group by offering students free access to old tests, assignments, class notes and practice questions. On this site, students can log on to over 1.1 million online resources, including material from MIT Open Courseware, a site that makes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s course materials available to anyone online for free. Additionally, the Web site provides a list of courses offered at FIU where students can access and upload content.

“We basically want for students to collaborate with each other to get better grades, but we are constantly upgrading our content database,” said Alan Powell, founder and vice president of marketing for UniversityJunction.

Market research conducted by the founding graduate students has proven that over 90 percent of university students rely on online resources to get help with studying. According to the market research at FIU, that amount is 94 percent.

Currently, UniversityJunction is being used in over 25 colleges and universities with over 3,500 students – 25 of them are from FIU.

“Although it is still in its basic stage, each course students sign up for has a forum feature allowing them to upload, choose and rank content associated with the course,” mentioned Powell.

UniversityJunction will be also hire tutors from Ivy League schools to answer questions posted by students within 24 hours.

“I think it seems a very helpful too and students who are trying to get any help they can get would most definitely use it although, personally, I would not upload any content I know people who would,” said Ramiro Gonzalez Lorca, sophomore and international relations major.

“My students did have the impression that the Web site was useful,” said Marc Resnick, industrial engineering professor at FIU whose students assessed the site’s usability and identified challenges encountered by users.

He mentioned that one of the problems with usability related to offering users feedback on content they posted or registered, but that overall he mentioned it was a good tool.

Another problem raised by UniversityJunction is a question of ethics.

Although it aims to be an ethical alternative to other test buying and note sharing Web sites, Powell acknowledges that the it might promote plagiarism and copyright infringement. He mentioned the Web site might encourage posting current exams, chapters from textbooks, or class lectures without the professor’s consent.

“We have met with professors in order to develop features and effective methods on our Web site to deter cheating,” said Powell “we have disabled the cut and paste tool, and we allow students to report or flag in the case of plagiarism.”

Powell vows that UniversityJunction pays a license fee for copyrighted content on their Web site.

UniversityJunction opened in FIU in March, but hopes a lot more FIU students will make use of the site.