Fusing the appeal of Facebook.com and the practicality of Blackboard, a new website, Epsilen.com, offers campuses a means to network through global academia.
Through Epsilen, creator Dr. Ali Jafari, professor of computing and information technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, hopes to take Blackboard and similar programs into the future through a setup inspired by Facebook.com. Jafari believes that in a fast-paced academic world of research, students and faculty need a network to collaborate with peers at other universities, a characteristic unique to Epsilen, which Blackboard and similar programs cannot offer.
Taica Hsu '06 was impressed with the goals and capabilities of Epsilen.
"As a future teacher, I would truly appreciate a venue such as Epsilen that would facilitate communication between the faculty and the student body," Hsu said. "Learning should not be confined to the classroom but should impact all facets of life."
Once registered with Epsilen, a student or university faculty member is given a life-long web page which contains an ePortfolio, a compilation of as much or as little information as the member wishes to share, including examples of the user's work. Users can put their web site on business cards or share it with potential employers.
Users are also able to post resumes on the website, which allows them to utilize Epsilen in seeking jobs, the reason for which University of Colorado junior Tamara Nozawa uses Epsilen. Nozawa, however, said she hasn't had any notable success.
"I haven't heard back from anybody," she said. "I don't think it's any more successful than just sending a resume.".
Computer science major Jonathan Gopez, a senior at University of the Pacific, saw many flaws in the resume option, noting issues of privacy and practicality.
"You don't have any options as far as who you want to view it; there's no privacy. Anybody can just grab at that information," Gopez said.
Gopez added that while someone can upload multiple resumes, there is no option to delete a resume already posted on the site, which causes problems when a user updates a previous resume.
Gopez has primarily used Epsilen to share his work with his classmates, an option that has allowed him to receive feedback on his work and offer feedback to other students.
This feature of Epsilen does not hold the same appeal to Dartmouth students, according to some undergraduates.
"Everyone's on blitz, almost all the time, so we already have a way that our campus communicates technologically," Ayla Glass '09 said.
"I think that the personal web page is a good idea for upperclassmen and underclassmen who are looking for internships or jobs to give to their employers so they can see examples of their work," Glass added. "Epsilen seems like a good idea, but it needs a little more work."
What makes Epsilen truly unique is that it is open to all students and faculty globally -- anyone with an ".edu" domain e-mail address may sign up -- so students do not lose information or lose connection with their schools if they transfer.
"The notion is that people are mobile ... that lifelong access and lifelong ownership is something that must be included in the design of the next generation of a learning environment," Jafari said.
Allowing students to maintain their accounts and keep their web pages for life relieves universities of the problems faced in terms of how long to hold on to alumni's work and accounts on university course management programs.
Like Facebook.com, Epsilen allows users to search for people, but with a more academic focus. Jafari hopes that the popularity of the social networking offered through Facebook will catch on in the academic world through Epsilen.
"The use of [Facebook.com] is limited to social networking. Why don't we create an environment where we can do global networking not just for social entertainment but for professional networking? Why don't I find someone with similar research interests that I have?" Jafari said.
Currently, about 300 students and faculty from 50 universities are registered with Epsilen, according to Jafari, a number that Jafari believes will grow immensely in the next few months as word of the program spreads among campuses.
Despite the complaints some offered The Dartmouth, Jafari said that current users have been satisfied with the software.
"Feedback has been more than perfect," Jafari said.
Epsilen offers many Facebook.com-like features, allowing registered members to add other users as professional or social colleagues. Doing so currently, however, doesn't give those users special access to that member's information. Jafari said that he is considering offering options that allow users to limit access of certain pieces of information or pieces of work to professional colleagues or social colleagues,
Epsilen users can choose to include their work in the ShareIt folder, which allows other users, whom the creator specifies, to view the pieces.
The creator is later able to see the hosts of users who accessed his content,
Currently, Epsilen is in its trial phase and is free to all users. The only requirement, like Facebook.com, is that a user has a valid university e-mail address.
In the future, Jafari plans to commercialize Epsilen, though he has made no specific business plans. Last week, a new version of Epsilen was released with a group feature similar to Facebook that allows members with similar interests to collaborate.
Next Tuesday, Jafari plans to release a colleague-of-a-colleague feature that allows users to see any colleagues that they have in common with another user.
