Question-and-Answer Site for Graduate Students to Start Next Week

A new online community billed as “a question-and-answer site for research-oriented graduate students” is set to open publicly next Friday.

Called Gradshare and developed by ProQuest, the Web site follows on the heels of other social-networking sites aimed at graduate students, like Graduate Junction. However, Gradshare’s developers hope that the site, which opened in beta form last October, will carve out a niche with its question-and-answer focus.

“Gradshare will become a way for graduate students to use peer mentoring to get answers to questions that they’re either not comfortable asking their advisors or unable to ask their advisors,” said Jeff Lang, a Gradshare spokesman. “For example, ‘When is the right time to start a family?’”

Users choose their discipline — for example, education or social sciences — and then view questions and answers in topics like “grant proposals” or “adviser relationships.” Membership is restricted to those with university e-mail accounts, and students from universities that have become partners with Gradshare will be able to access college-specific materials uploaded by their institutions, such as links to degree requirements or university databases.

ProQuest, which views Gradshare as a way to explore how the company could use social-networking in its other products, will not charge students or institutions and plans to keep the site advertising-free, Mr. Lang said.

Nine institutions — including Georgetown University, the University of Kentucky, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte — joined Gradshare as partners for its beta run, and the site hopes to unveil 10 more university partners each month once it opens, Mr. Lang said. —David Shieh