I’m happy to announce that Grockit will be offering its paid summer research internship program for the summer of 2010. This is the second year that we’re doing this (thanks again, Angela!), and I think it’s a great opportunity for doctoral students to apply their own research experience to a system that a large (and growing) community of learners uses everyday. It’s worth mentioning that Grockit has a large and interesting set of educational data, a variety of research interests, a very talented team, and a fantastic work environment. I just posted details about this program (with an application form) on the 2010 Summer Research Internship, and I encourage you to check it out.

I wanted to share a few thoughts on why we’re offering this, what we have in mind for the program, and why you (or perhaps someone you know) should consider applying.

Grockit, as you may know, is a San Francisco-based web startup building a platform for — and a community around — synchronous collaborative learning games. We strive to provide our growing global network of learners with a smart platform informed by peer assistance and adaptive support. Towards this end, we’re constantly exploring new ways to support collaborative learning online, and we’re frequently examining and applying techniques for analyzing the learning data that we’ve been collecting. One reason that we’re offering this program is to expand on the ways in which we pursue these goals.

Two of the challenges in studying computational systems for peer learning — both of which I faced in completing my own graduate work — is that these systems can take quite some time to build, and it can often take even longer to cultivate a sufficiently large community of participating learners. As a result, the time required to get from hypothesis to data analysis can be (or at least can feel) quite long. At Grockit, we’ve been making good progress with regards to both challenges, and hope that this internship will provide an enterprising graduate student with the opportunity to speed up this process for their own research questions.

In addition to the research opportunity, we’re offering a program stipend, an accommodation stipend, and a travel stipend. You’ll also get a healthy breakfast and lunch cooked in the office every weekday and the chance to spend your summer in vibrant San Francisco. So if you are a doctoral student studying in a university in the United States and interested in applying for a summer research position with us, I’d encourage you to submit an application.

The deadline is March 1, 2010, and you can apply today.