Bored of Studies

Bored of Studies is an Australian website targeted at students in New South Wales and Victoria. It is prominent among students for its Student Assessment Modeller that calculates approximate Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (formerly Universities Admission Index) or Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank results, and for hosting study notes for the New South Wales Higher School Certificate courses. An extensive student community has evolved around its forum, which is frequented by school students, teachers and a growing number of university students. The site's name is a parody of the NSW Board of Studies, the former governing organisation for the Higher School Certificate (HSC).
History.
The website was created on 5 March 2002 by four former HSC students who had completed their HSC in the previous year: Mark Czajkowski, James King, Tim Cheng and Ian Keong. Regarded as the successor to the popular "hscboardz" and "uniboardz" forums and the "hscstuff.cjb.net" resource library, the site's founders claim that because they were the first to sit a newly revised HSC syllabus, they were able to clearly see the lack of information that future HSC students would face. A desire to help address this lack of information was a prime reason behind the founding of Bored of Studies. The site is owned and operated by iStudy Australia Pty Ltd, based in the Sydney CBD.
Influence and criticism.
Bored of Studies has become an increasingly popular site for HSC students, with a membership of over 400 000 and more than 15 million monthly hits. It is often recommended by teachers as a valuable resource containing past papers and practice essays. It has been suggested that an official bulletin from the NSW Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) did much to popularise the site around the state. There has been concern that the extensive subject notes available on the site could lead to cheating among students.
In 2005, a student's attempt to gain access to his raw HSC examination under freedom of information laws drew controversy when the request was refused by the government. This followed the previous successful attempt by James King, one of the administrators on the Bored of Studies website, to obtain his raw marks. The information sparked debate about the standard of student responses that were given pass marks, with the then Federal Education minister Brendan Nelson defending the students' right to know their marks.
Recent developments.
In 2006 Bored of Studies launched Biki (Bored of Studies Wiki), a wiki collection of HSC notes, information and resources using the MediaWiki software to allow contributions. Biki was later closed "due to prolonged inactivity and outdated resources". Also in 2006, 'Premium membership' was introduced giving paid members access to additional content and features. The site was hacked in June 2010 and recovered in August of the same year, resulting in it being reinterfaced for better security and member navigation.