iOS App for Studying your Flashcards

[pachun]

I am new to the forums, so if this isn't the correct place to post this, please feel free to move it.

I wrote an iOS app to help Actuaries study their flash cards.

We’re given flashcard study material in the format of a folder named “JPEGs” containing folders named “A”, “B”, “C”, etc, each of which contains more folders with names like “Surplus”, “SSAP”, etc. Inside each of those folders are images representing the fronts and backs of flashcards.

My app is Acceptuary and its goal is to provide an easy means of importing said flashcard format. Launch the app and give it your dropbox credentials. Then upload your JPEGs folder. Acceptuary recognizes the format, and knows how to construct each flash card, assuming the flashcard images in each folder are in the following format:

Alphabetical order, where the first image is the front of the first flashcard, the second image is the back of the first flashcard, the third image is the front of the second flashcard, etc.

After importing, you can quiz yourself using the app on a section by section basis.

Here’s the site: https://acceptuary.github.io/

I’m looking for testers to try the app and provide some feedback. My iOS developer license allows me to have up to 100 beta testers to try the app before it goes to the store. Email or direct message me if you’re interested in trying it out. If you’re interested, please be sure to send me feedback.

Anki is another app for reading flashcards, but it wasn’t built specifically for actuaries. It doesn’t recognize the format in which we’re given our flashcards. Using Anki, you have to manually iterate through your flashcard images to pair them. Our time is valuable, so spending a couple hours pairing 800+ font & back flashcard images to create 400 flashcards is waste we could’ve spent learning. The process can be automated and that’s what Acceptuary does.

TL;DR, Acceptuary:

is an iOS app which will run on iPads, iPods, and iPhones (iOS 9.1 or higher).

reduces actuary study material import costs, allowing more time to study instead of onboard.


To try the beta, email me nick@pachulski.me or direct message me.
Please send feedback.
Feature requests are encouraged.
If you find a bug, please send me steps to reproduce the issue.

Let’s maximize our study time.

[Expunge]

I wish you luck in your app. But I don't think it is novel enough to warrant another app. You could have written a script to import what you have into Anki.

I downloaded Anki, and an addin (MediaImport), then modified the media import script to pair up my images for me. After about 30 mins I was able to have all of TIA's note cards into Anki. And now I'll benefit from spaced repetition.

[pachun]

Thanks for the feedback, Expunge!

I've been hearing a lot about spaced repetition since I started building this app. It sounds like people are really sold on it. What else does Anki have (or lack) that you'd find useful?

I think there is always demand for a tool that does a single job well, even if there's already something out there which can do that job. People just haven't realized it yet.

Anki is definitely a good app, but it tries to do too much and as consequence there's a buy-in cost to do anything. If you could add useful, actuary-niche features to Anki, what would they be and if you could remove things that only cause confusion and increase entry costs, what would go?

Thanks again for the feedback! I hope I can get enough of it to make this app a better experience for Actuaries, specifically.

[Expunge]

Spaced repetition for old exam questions and practice problems.
Some way to input those past exam problems (ie. here's the pdf, and it somehow being able to know where the question starts and ends, along with the solution.

Anything else like grouping similar old exam questions together etc, I just don't see how to do without significant input from instructors.

Which leads me to, getting the buy-in from instructors.