Supernotes is a content-driven, active learning environment which provides online tools that can be used productively inside and outside the classroom. The current chapters are:
In December 2015, Tobias was revising for his January exams and he was fed up with KEATS (KCL’s iteration of Moodle). Frustrated with his inability to easily annotate the PDFs that his instructors uploaded to KEATS, and by all the handwritten notes he had to carry from class to class, he thought there must be a better way, so he started to build a replacement: Supernotes.
Meanwhile, Connor was also frustrated with KEATS. However, his solution was simpler and less visionary. He simply wrote a program to automatically download and organise all the course files on KEATS into folders on his own computer, so that he would no longer need to deal with Moodle’s cumbersome interface. Later, he joined forces with Tobias to help make vision into reality.
Our way of approaching problems differently makes us a great team, as it allows us to brainstorm and bounce ideas of each other rapidly, creating the Supernotes we see today in the pitch video below:
Primarily, the current higher education e-learning market is comprised of Learning Management Systems (LMS), which all have one focus, course management. This usually means these tools aren’t used for much beyond uploading and downloading files. However, there are also Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), in the e-learning market. These are fully online classes offered by the likes of Coursera, edX and Khan Academy. MOOCs have demonstrated what is possible when the internet is well-utilised for learning. They promote engagement and learning from anywhere in the world.
The LMS platform market alone was worth around $2.5 billion in 2015 and is growing year on year by 23% 1.
In the UK our primary competitors are the two LMSs that dominate the academic market, Moodle and Blackboard. Moodle is an open-source project written in PHP, while Blackboard is for-profit and has a few more features, but they are fundamentally the same. Both have very large userbases with Moodle at 89.2 Million 2 and Blackboard at 100 Million 3. Some universities which use these systems are listed below:
| Moodle | Blackboard |
|---|---|
| Bath | Brighton |
| City | Edinburgh |
| Coventry | Imperial College London |
| Cambridge | Kingston |
| Essex | Leicester |
| King’s College London | Liverpool |
| Kent | London Metropolitan |
| Nottingham | Manchester |
| Portsmouth | Reading |
| Royal Holloway | Southampton |
| University College London | Swansea |
| Warwick | Westminister |
We fundamentally believe that rapport between lecturers and their students is very important, and real-life lecture theatres and classrooms have a significant role in the 21st century. However the interactions inside and outside the university campus need to change in the digital age.
LMSs were built as a support structure to classrooms, but they are not nearly as immersive as MOOCs, nor do they provide any interaction tools that students or teachers want to use. LMSs have fallen short when it comes to helping students learn and have also fallen short in helping teachers teach. However, as MOOCs are primarily targeted at remote learning, they are not built to augment classrooms but rather as a complete replacement. This leaves a gap in the market. Enter Supernotes. We have fused together the innovative MOOC learning features and core values with the managerial role of an LMS, to form the first ever Active Learning Environment (ALE).
| Key Functions | LMS | ALE | MOOC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online learning | |||
| Course Management | |||
| Classroom Learning | |||
| Online content creation | |||
| Convenient interaction features |
Key:
The true heart and soul of our project is our approach. We pay attention to every little detail. From the unobtrusive reading progress bar below, to the multitasking menu above, we have refined every aspect of the platform to ensure that both students and lecturers have a great experience. That is the Supernotes difference.
As our product is in its infancy, the features in a lighter green are still in development.
| Feature | M/BB | SN |
|---|---|---|
| Same Format Regardless of Lecturer Supernotes ensures consistent and high quality learning materials. The design is generated automatically, allowing lecturers to focus on the content rather than making it visually appealing. |
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| Unified Content Creation and Editing No need for lecturers to download additional programs and post module content in PDFs, PowerPoints, and Word Documents. If corrections are made, they only need to be made once, and students are automatically notified of any modifications. |
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| Responsive Formatting Across All Devices If a student is on a phone, tablet or latop, they can always learn, with correct formatting available for a simple user friendly experience. |
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| Automatic Booklet Generation Booklets are automatically generated for each module. Try it for yourself now, press print and see the booklet preview. |
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| Automatic Presentation Generation No more powerpoint. Presentations are automatically generated from a Supernote using AI, halving the lecturers workload. |
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| Anonymous and Interactive Questions During a lecture shy students can ask questions anonymously, and this will appear on the lecturer’s presentation, increasing student’s confidence in the subject. After a lecture, students can ask question directly in context. |
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| Inline Highlights/Comments Students can highlight and add comments to the learning material directly in the browser, no need for additional programs to annotate pdfs. |
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| Native Dark Mode Try it now, click here to scroll to the daytime/nighttime button. |
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| Built in Offline Support As soon as you visit Supernotes, the website downloads offline. Not convinced? Disconnect your device from the internet now and refresh the page. |
Key: M - Moodle; BB - Blackboard; SN - Supernotes.
Connor: Tobias takes the initiative to put himself out there and release a product right off the bat, a step I hadn’t taken before. I’ve worked with different teams and companies making software, and one thing I’ve learned is that at the end of the day, if you don’t release and use your product, you’ve accomplished nothing. Every time I meet Tobias he will be bubbling with excitement about his latest creation. When he told me about Supernotes, we clicked, and I am thrilled to be partners with him on this project.
Tobias: Connor is an incredibly gifted programmer, since I met him three years ago he would always show me some funky new programs he wrote ranging form the plain, fun to the downright useful. And before I even started this project we had a rant on how bad Moodle was and he showed me his Moodle scraping program. So when I approached him to join me in this project, I knew he would be interested. But I didn’t expect that the next day he would show me a basic working prototype, I was amazed. I instantly new that this would work.
We are looking forward to the future and we are very fortunate to have some great opportunities/ideas lined up:
Supernotes will be phased in alongside Moodle in the Biomedical Engineering Degree at King’s College London. Department Director and Head of Education, Professor Kawal Rhode is fully supporting our system.
Launch of the first Supernotes exclusive module, Synthetic Anatomy. Run in partnership with King’s College London and the Royal College of Art, this programme will serve as a brilliant way to demonstrate the Supernotes platform.
We hope to have a polished and thoroughly beta-tested Supernotes product in time for the 2018 - 2019 academic year. At this point, most if not all module content for the Biomedical Engineering course will be available on Supernotes. Other departments in KCL could easily start to adopt our system as well. Pricing packages would be introduced revenue could start to be generated.
