Flooved made a bold move and went for a complete paradigm shift: through social collaboration and by opening up the access student’s across the world have to knowledge.
This is one of the many site reviews that we will be doing from now onwards. We will post more as we find new great resources out there providing free reading materials. Happy reading!
1. Background
A brief history and get to know section.
Flooved was founded in 2012. Started two years ago by Nicolas Philippe and Hamish Brocklebank, the main objective behind Flooved is pretty simple – to create a platform which allows free access to educational materials for students all over the world. Judging by the amount of information and contributors that they have gathered so far, the progress they have made so far has been astounding.
Flooved has social accounts that you can follow:-
2. Content
Number of titles & contributors, available formats, categories / genres.
Flooved has approximately 1,500 titles, authored by over 300 contributors. The range of titles on the site are available for online viewing only, covering various categories / genres such as:-
- Maths
- Physics
.
3. Accessibility
Ease of use, user friendliness, registration & benefits, reviews, ratings, etc.
The website’s interface is pretty straightforward, with the search bar right at the top and both of the main categories at the top right of the site. Having said that, navigating through this site should be a breeze, allowing you to gain access to materials rather quickly. Content can be accessed by simply clicking on the main title, without the need of going through multiple pages and complicated signup process. In order to view any of the available titles, registration is not required, but highly recommended to take advantage of the additional benefits as a member. Some of which include the option of saving annotations, accessing the Q&A section and certain highlighting options. Not to mention the option to leave your ratings and the benefit of being able to upload your own documents.
A search option is available at the top of the site for those who have a particular subject or title in mind. However, this search results and other listings in the site do not support common sorting options such as Newest, Mostly viewed, etc. Regardless, to those who treat this as an essential feature, the latest content can be found on the main content page. To those who prefer to browse around instead, titles can be accessed by categories, subcategories and professor names.
As for the availability of individual description of each of the title, you’ll find a short paragraph explaining the general content of it, accompanied by a rating system which is conveniently created to aid in your previewing tasks. Rating criterias include:-
- General quality
- Readability
- Relevance
- Conciseness
- Detailed enough?
- Good for revision?
4. Updates
Avenue for receiving latest updates / additions – RSS feeds, newsletter, etc.
Flooved has no global RSS feeds that you can subscribe to, but appears at certain areas of the site such as Q&A, and has no email options to receive updates on future additions of new titles. They have a blog but the latest post was on the 4th of October 2013.
Conclusion
What do we really think of Flooved
A commendable effort by the few individuals behind the scene. Undoubtedly, when it comes to education, you can never go wrong with it, even better when it’s available – completely free. Everybody deserves equal access to educational materials, and Flooved seems to be a perfect place to start. Give the site a visit and if you happen to be one of the contributors in the education industry, feel free to contribute.
Click on the link below to visit this site:-
Flooved.com
