Think of it as Facebook for the University – but it will help you with homework rather than distract you from it.

It’s eCampusWide.com, and it offers book swaps, note swaps, professor ratings and live chats with classmates all in one place.

Founder Jacob Berton describes eCampusWide.com as “an academic social networking site.”

Berton, who graduated from the University in 2008, first envisioned the idea for eCampusWide.com almost three years ago.

“I was tired of digging through discussions on other sites,” he said. “I knew social networking could be used better than looking through pictures or checking status updates.”

So he created eCampusWide.com.

“It’s an easy way for students to use social networking,” he said. “It’s a way for them to be able to keep their academic lives separate from their social lives.”

The site launched about three weeks ago. Around 400 members already have signed up, including 50 or 60 on Monday alone, Berton said.

“I’ve been blown away by the response,” he said, adding that he hopes the site will continue to grow and eventually reach thousands of members.

eCampusWide.com is a “one-stop shop,” several students said.

Some of the site’s services are available elsewhere, but eCampusWide.com combines all of them for the University community.

“We want to bring students what they want . and use social networking to get things done,” Berton said.

The Web site’s professor ratings provide numerical ratings and grade point averages, as well as student reviews. The service also enables students to compare two professors, side by side.

“The difference is you can look at this and see they may be a tough professor, but they’re a great professor,” Berton said. “It’s a great visual.”

Misha Ghaznavi, a junior from Lilburn, heard about eCampusWide.com when Berton came to speak to her business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, about the site.

“It has grade point reports with professor comments, so I used [the site] when deciding what classes what to take,” she said.

The book swap differs from other sites that sell textbooks because the books are not sold through a distributor.

Instead, students list which books they have and which books they need, and the site offers “three degrees of separation” to promote familiarity during book-swapping – meaning a student can trade directly with another student on the Web site or swap books in a group of three students.

Stephen Ramminger, a junior from Alpharetta, used the site when registering for classes, and also plans on using some of the other features.

“[The site has] a lot of other features like book swap and note swap that I haven’t used yet, but I plan to use around finals when I’m trying to get rid of my books,” he said.

Similar to the book swap, the note swap allows students to buy or sell notes if they choose, or to post notes for free.

The site’s live chat enables classmates, professors and tutors to contact each other instantaneously.

Ghaznavi used the live chat before a test for a review with her classmates.

“It’s really easy to use,” she said. “I feel like [the site] is sort of a one-stop shop for UGA.”

But the site will be more effective once more students have joined, she said.

“I really want to encourage students to use it because the more students there are, the better it’ll be,” she said.

Tutors can sign up on the site to offer their services. Once they build a reputation, they have the option to start charging students for their services.

Berton said he plans to expand eCampusWide.com in the future.

He recently teamed up with Athens Blur magazine to provide music and news and hopes to provide restaurant coupons soon.

“We’ll be branching out into entertainment, housing, business sections, but that’s down the road,” he said. “We’re getting started with academics because we know that’s something students need. There’s really not something like this out there.”

He said the site is still in beta, a prototype version released for user testing.

“If anybody has any feedback, we’re very open to it,” he said.

Ramminger said he began using the site after he saw an advertisement for it on Facebook.

“It’s a very easy to use thing, where you go to one Web site and everything’s there in front of you,” he said. “It almost seems like Facebook in a way, but everything has to do with academics and UGA.”

Berton sees eCampusWide.com as a way for students to interact with a larger group within the University, he said.

“It’s more of a community than a social networking site because it brings the community together to do things rather than just communicating with your friends,” he said.