Company Review: RCampus education tools

Your one-stop-shop for everything school

Students turn to many different places to get through the school year. Some buy their textbooks at the local (and overpriced) stores while others wait three weeks into classes for their Amazon shipment to arrive.

Some log onto their professor’s Web site to check the homework, while others frantically interrogate the syllabus but only seem to find the policies on chewing gum in the classroom.

Some stay in their dorm room and blog about World of Warcraft and others join the folk dancing club; the list goes on and on. Regardless of a student’s personal choice, he or she faces a variety of tasks, chores, responsibilities - or as an organized student would put it- a nicely sized to-do list. But given the fact that the majority of students tend to lack faultless time management and organization, solutions exist to satisfy the need to sort things out.

That is what RCampus offers: a free one-stop-shop for everything students need. Essentially, by offering a multitude of school-related services, RCampus attempts to put all aspects of what students need in order to do their work in one easy-to-use location. RCampus integrates a range of pre-existing features essential to a student’s organization, such as course Web sites, grade books, calendars, communication between students and more. This concept does not aim to reinvent the wheel. It is simply attempting to manage the store where you can buy not just tires, but the rims, nuts, bolts, and the installment service too.

RCampus starts by offering some student essentials conveniently available on one site. The “Class Finder” feature allows students to find and register for classes. Additionally, it provides a multi-scenario term planner in which students can map out their schedule according to which classes they may or may not get into. Once a student is enrolled in a class, he or she can use the “Course Management System” feature which links to the class website, provides coursework and assignment management, stores documents, includes a grade books, calendar and rubrics, and improves communication through a message board and email notifications.

The social networking features

RCampus also integrates the success of social networking to increase the array of its features. The painful process of buying overpriced textbooks is made a little more comfortable through the “Book Exchange” feature which enables student-to-student textbook exchange and purchase. This feature lets students post wanted and for sale ads. In the spirit of social networking, the “Campus Communities” feature gives organizations such as clubs the ability to stay connected and informed, while the “Tutor  Connection” feature lets students find and provide tutoring services without needing to leave the RCampus site.

Additionally, the “ePortfolios” and “Website Builder” features allow for individual students to personalize their RCampus experience and develop a unique profile. RCampus also provides opportunities to network for beyond-school experiences such as jobs and internships.    

What’s more is that RCampus is not only for students. Teachers can send out assignments, post documents, set up automated email reminders, and communicate with the students. Through cooperation of schools, students, and teachers, RCampus has the potential to make the life of a student a lot more manageable.

By understanding the importance of organization and communication for students and teachers, RCampus offers a desirable service for an unbeatable price - free!

Although the success of RCampus depends highly on the cooperation of schools and teachers, it seems like the services could offer a perfect solution for smaller schools that do not have their entire technical framework already established. Perhaps through the use of RCampus, students will need to spend less time searching for organizational solutions and get to spend more time doing something that will teach them about themselves, whether that is folk dancing  or blogging.