We are writing with news of a research competition we are launching today. The aim, quite simply, is to find the best way of using an hour of study time to learn novel foreign vocabulary items. There is even a $10,000 prize for the winning entry! We are launching this in collaboration with Memrise (www.memrise.com), which is a free online vocabulary learning tool and app.

There will be two phases to the competition. First, participating research groups will test their proposed “recipe” in their own labs, against a baseline condition which we will provide, and submit their results. Then the most successful recipes will be run in the Memrise environment, with real world users. A copy of the competition rules is attached, and you can read more about the competition on Memrise’s website here:

http://www.memrise.com/prize/

We will provide a program for running the baseline condition for the study phase, against which competitors will pit the experimental condition of their choice. We will also provide a program for the final test phase. These will be available for downloading from the Memrise site shortly.

We hope you will want to take part! We would also be grateful for your help in circulating this to students in your department, and to any colleagues and email distribution lists to whom it may be of interest.

Best wishes

Rosalind Potts and David Shanks

University College London