Dropping out of university to launch a start-up isold hat. The twist with Joseph Cohen, Dan Getelmanand Jim Grandpre is that their start-up aims toimprove how universities work. In May 2011 thethree founders quit the University of Pennsvlvania. to launch Coursekit,soon renamed asLore.whichhas already raised $ 6m to develop what Mr. Cohen, its 21-year-old chief executive,describes as a social-learning network for the classroom".

　　Lore is part of a trend that builds on the familiarity with social networking that has comewith the success of Facebook. It customizes the rules of a network to meet the specific needsof students. Anyone teaching a class would reasonably worry that students using Facebookwere gossiping rather than learning useful information from their network of friends. Loreallows teachers to control exactly who is in the network by issuing a class-membership codeand to see how they are using it. They can also distribute course materials, contact students,manage tests and grades, and decide what to make public and what to keep private. Studentscan also interact with each other.

　　In the academic year after launching its first version last November, Lore was used in atleast one class in 600 diversities and colleges. Its goal for its second year, about to begin, is tospread rapidly within those 600 institutions, not least to see what the effects of scale are fromhaving lots of classes signed up within the same institution.

　　The firm has a fast-growing army of fans in the faculty common room. Lore, says EdwardBoches, who uses it for his advertising classes at Boston University, makes teaching "moreinteractive, extends it beyond the classroom and stimulates students to learn from each otherrather than just the professor. "

　　Among other challenges for the company, there remains the small matter of figuring out abusiness model. For the moment it has none. Mr. Cohen hopes that eventually Lore couldbecome the primary marketplace for everything from courses to textbooks, but so far theservice is free and carries no advertising. Blackboard, the industry incumbent (占有者), chargesusers for its course-management software. It remains to be seen how it will respond to theupstart(新贵).

　　The lack of a plan does not appear to bother Lore's founders or investors, -who seemcontent to learn a lesson from another university drop-out, Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder ofFacebook: achieve critical mass in your network and the profits will follow. And after thatperhaps they can expect an honorary degree from the a/ma mater(母校).