EncodeOS
Join the waitlist

The lean study pipeline that structures your learning and revision

Optimized for understanding per unit of time. A system that evaluates your understanding so most of your time is spent improving, not staying the same.

Join waitlist
Sketch: hero (v4), section 2 in sand, and the hand-over between them
What you can do alone
What you can do with help
zone of proximal development
Tasks you can handle without help
Zone of proximal development
2 · Zone of proximal development (scroll slowly)
The zone of proximal development

Psychologist Lev Vygotsky studied the gap between what learners can do independently and what they can do with guidance. His idea describes two zones. 1

What you can do alone: tasks you handle without help. They build confidence, but you barely grow.

The zone of proximal development: tasks too hard to do alone but possible with help. They test your confidence, and they're where you grow most, often called the sweet spot for learning.

1 Vygotsky (1978), Mind in Society, p. 86
Why we stay where it's comfortable

Left on our own, most of us stay in the first zone. Research on how students study points to three habits:

We reread instead of testing ourselves, especially when we don't feel ready yet. 2

We leave the hardest for last when time is short. 3

We skip what we believe we know. We drop what feels “mastered” and go for the easiest thing we haven't learned yet. 4

2 Kuhbandner & Emmerdinger (2019); Karpicke, Butler & Roediger (2009)
3 Metcalfe (2002)
4 Metcalfe & Kornell (2005)
The way out

Students who have just studied something judge how well they know it by how familiar it feels. 5 Seeing it again triggers a feeling: "I know this." That feeling is a trap. It feels like knowing, so we stop studying what we think we know, 4 and the gaps stay hidden until a test exposes them.

We've always relied on teachers, tutors, books and videos to show us what we're missing. A teacher can see your gaps, when they're there. EncodeOS is with you whenever you study. It draws the learning objectives from your own material, evaluates your understanding against them, and keeps pushing you into the zone of proximal development.

You can't see your own gaps. Videos and books can't see them either. EncodeOS can.

4 Metcalfe & Kornell (2005) · 5 Koriat & Bjork (2005)
First-pass copy

The zone of proximal development

Psychologist Lev Vygotsky studied the gap between what learners can do independently and what they can do with guidance.

His idea describes two zones. 1

What you can do alone: tasks you handle without help. They build confidence, but you barely grow.

The zone of proximal development: tasks too hard to do alone but possible with help. They test your confidence, and they're where you grow most, often called the sweet spot for learning.

1 Vygotsky (1978), Mind in Society, p. 86

Why we stay where it's comfortable

Left on our own, most of us stay in the first zone.

Research on how students study points to three habits:

We reread instead of testing ourselves, especially when we don't feel ready yet. 2

We leave the hardest for last when time is short. 3

We skip what we believe we know. We drop what feels “mastered” and go for the easiest thing we haven't learned yet. 4

2 Kuhbandner & Emmerdinger (2019); Karpicke, Butler & Roediger (2009) · 3 Metcalfe (2002) · 4 Metcalfe & Kornell (2005)

The way out

Students who have just studied something judge how well they know it by how familiar it feels. 5

Seeing it again triggers a feeling: "I know this." That feeling is a trap. It feels like knowing, so we stop studying what we think we know, 4 and the gaps stay hidden until a test exposes them.

We've always relied on teachers, tutors, books and videos to show us what we're missing. A teacher can see your gaps, when they're there. EncodeOS is with you whenever you study. It draws the learning objectives from your own material, evaluates your understanding against them, and keeps pushing you into the zone of proximal development.

4 Metcalfe & Kornell (2005) · 5 Koriat & Bjork (2005)

You can't see your own gaps. Videos and books can't see them either. EncodeOS can.

How the system works

Step 1
Your material as a map

Give EncodeOS your study material in various file formats, and it becomes a map, laid out the way your material teaches it. Look over the map before you study to get a clear overview of what you're about to learn. Research shows that an overview before you study can help you understand and remember new material. 6 Whenever you're lost in the detail, come back to the map to find your way.

6 Bransford & Johnson (1972) · Luiten, Ames & Ackerson (1980)
Step 2
Learning objectives for every concept

Open any concept and you'll find its learning objectives. They're what the tutor teaches and tests you on, so EncodeOS can see where your understanding stops and push you past it. Each one is backed by an exact quote from your material and where it's found. EncodeOS looks up every quote in your files and flags any it can't find.

Study session · step 1
The big picture first

Pick a topic. By default the tutor teaches it from your material, main ideas first, and holds the details back until you have the whole picture. You can still start wherever you like or ask about any detail on the way. After each idea you say it back in your own words or try a small problem. If something isn't landing after two tries, you can move on, and the tutor brings it back later. You come away with the whole topic joined up, ready for the details.

Study session · step 2
Answers from your material

Ask about anything in the topic and the tutor looks it up in what EncodeOS stored from your files, instead of answering from memory. That saves you scrolling through slides or scrubbing through a lecture recording to find where something was said. If your material doesn't cover it, the tutor tells you before it answers. It does the searching, so your effort goes into learning the material.

Sources for the examples

Statistics map: adapted from OpenIntro Statistics, 4th ed., §1.3, by David Diez, Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel and Christopher Barr, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Changes: EncodeOS generated the map, learning objectives and explanation. This adapted Statistics example (the map's text and the panel's objectives and explanation) is itself licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Memory session: adapted from Psychology – H5P Edition, Part VIII, by Rose M. Spielman, Kathryn Dumper, William Jenkins, Arlene Lacombe, Marilyn Lovett and Marion Perlmutter, © 2021 OpenStax, BCcampus, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Changes: EncodeOS generated the outline and the tutor's answers.

Classical conditioning chat (phones): adapted from Psychology – H5P Edition, chapter 32, by Rose M. Spielman, Kathryn Dumper, William Jenkins, Arlene Lacombe, Marilyn Lovett and Marion Perlmutter, © 2021 OpenStax, BCcampus, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Changes: EncodeOS generated the tutor's answer.

Revision · step 1
Adaptive difficulty

Every question, in study and in revision, is pitched by how you've answered so far. Too easy and you'd be bored; too hard and you'd be frustrated. Psychologists call the engaging point in between flow. 7 The tutor knows what you've shown before and how you're answering now, so it asks what you can reach with a little push, and steps back to something simpler when you're stuck. That keeps you in the zone of proximal development, where more of your study time goes into growing.

7 Csikszentmihalyi (1990)
Revision · step 2
Finding and closing your gaps

You can't see your own gaps, but EncodeOS can. After every session it marks each answer against the learning objectives, noting whether you needed a hint, which ideas you mixed up and any rule you've picked up wrong. Based on that evidence, your weakest concepts come first when you revise, so you face the hardest parts early instead of leaving them for last. EncodeOS keeps working on your gaps until they're consolidated, so nothing gets abandoned. Every few questions, it mixes in something you've shown you know well, so you preserve what you know while you fix what you don't. And because your revision is spaced out over the weeks, you remember more in the long run than you would by cramming for the same hours. 8

8 Cepeda et al. (2006) · Dunlosky et al. (2013)
Revision · step 3
Practise the way you're tested

It's tempting to save past papers for the end of the semester, once you've studied everything. Give EncodeOS your past papers and it matches every question to the topic it's about. From the day after you study a topic, your revision uses its real exam questions and generated ones in the same style and format, alongside questions on the learning objectives from your material. Without past papers, the learning objectives and the exercises in your material do all the work, so you're still practising what your material suggests you'll be assessed on.

Study with a system that sees your gaps.

Join the waitlist for occasional updates, tester invitations and launch news.

One email to confirm, then only occasional updates. Unsubscribe anytime. If you're under 16, ask a parent or guardian first. Privacy

See more demos →

Demos available on desktop or laptop view.

Frequently asked questions
Who is EncodeOS for?

Anyone serious about learning a subject. It's built mainly for high school and university students, course takers and self-learners. EncodeOS teaches you the material you give it, so it works best with something structured: a book, a course, or your school or university curriculum.

What subjects can I use it for?

Both kinds. Some subjects are mostly theory (declarative knowledge), like psychology or philosophy. Others are about applying what you know (procedural knowledge), like maths or programming. EncodeOS teaches you the concepts either way, then sharpens them the way the subject needs: in psychology it asks you to explain a concept in your own words, and in maths or programming it gives you problems that make you apply it.

Won't the AI just do my thinking for me?

It's designed for the opposite. The AI takes over the searching and the admin: finding where something is explained in your material, organizing what to study and planning your revision. The thinking stays with you. You explain concepts in your own words and make the connections yourself, so you use AI to learn more, not less.

What if the AI gets something wrong?

AI can make mistakes, and the AI in EncodeOS can too. The system is built to keep them in check: every quote it takes from your material is checked by code, not the AI, against the page it cites, and anything it can't find is flagged. If you disagree with how an answer was marked, you can correct it, and your revision plan follows your correction.

What happens when I join the waitlist?

You'll get occasional updates, tester invitations and launch news. The official release will be announced to the list first.