 How can you encourage users to generate content?
neilk: If you think of it in terms of 'getting content' you're doomed. At Yahoo they were always yammering about 'user-generated content' like it was 'free stuff we can slap ads on'. Maybe you don't mean anything by the term, but I think such terms do have the power to shape our thinking.People participate on sites that think of them as members, or valued contributors. Figure out how you and they have a shared agenda.Some concrete ideas:1) seed with content -- call all your friends2) bribery -- tickets, coupons : poor quality content is likely though3) make the demand visible. Add a feature allowing people to request ratings of certain courses. The person who answers the need then feels more heroic and you can even reward with karma points4) callbacks -- allow people to enter email addresses to be notified when certain courses are rated. Bonus! These people will be worth asking for ratings in a few months.5) leaderboards, achievements for being helpful, funny, etc.6) PR: get articles written about you in the student press.  Quality control is pretty lax in most cases. Your issue is the price of textbooks and their ultimate value, which is genuinely controversial. Or, ask your valued members to write letters to the editor on the topic.