Professor Jasper Kim (Graduate School of International Studies) calls it a Youtube for documents. Ohmydocs!, an academic English Web Site where documents are freely uploaded for the people and by the people, makes a clever attempt to “flatten” knowledge with easily accessible intelligence online. A friendly orange screen greets any of those who reach for helpful knowledge, regardless of age or social class.
Ohmydocs! has four basic categories for uploaded documents – Academic, Business, Career, and Other. According to Kim, it has a basic aim: creating a sturdy knowledge base online. Documents of all sorts, ranging from distinguished New York Times articles to guidelines on academic writing from
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Ohmydocs! comes with various side benefits. “First, you can effectively ‘publish’ your article instantly by uploading. Second, you are effectively participating in global knowledge transfer, a form of global community service, by contributing. Third, you can receive helpful comments and reviews for your work, in case you’re seeking peer review. Fourth, you can make your mark in society by ‘sharing your knowledge’ instead of having it e-waste away in your old hard drive forever,” said Kim.
Current Korean users are mostly students from Ewha,
Ohmydocs! was designed and created with the help of several creative ideas from a number of Ewha students, mostly from the Division of International Studies, and ultimately an inspired sketch on a yellow pad. The visual and technical elements are created as to make the barriers to uploading as minimal as possible. Once a username ID is made, a swift click on “Upload Now” enables anyone to contribute to the knowledge base of Ohmydocs!. Documents of the four categories can also be viewed freely. The site holds most types of documents such as MS Word, Powerpoint, PDF and Excel. “The entire process is designed to take less than a minute,” said Kim.
Kim’s future plan for Ohmydocs! is to build a unique online community, where knowledge and a way to enhance English writing and presentation skill are easily found.
“The larger the community, the more the knowledge that can be shared,” said Kim. “Contributing your knowledge to Ohmydocs! is a form of global community service or corporate social responsibility. I’m hoping that people, especially Ewha students, will upload whatever documents they think others may find useful onto Ohmydocs!. To receive, one must give – that’s my belief and this philosophy in part is what Ohmydocs! is predicated upon.”