Kipras Vitas, a sophomore computer science major, speaks to The Charge on Air on Oct. 13 about his new AI-studying app UniShare.
Bianca Lopez
Student groups are not new, but one UCF student created an app to serve as an all-in-one studying platform that can pay users for their contributions.
“The best way I can explain it is it puts sharing resources, creating study groups, and using, like, productivity and AI tools all in one place,” said Kipras Vitas, a sophomore computer science major.
This app, UniShare, is currently being used by more than 550 students, Vitas said, and allows students to upload coursework, notes, practice quizzes, past tests and recorded lectures. It can also create practice quizzes and flashcards from YouTube videos, textbook pages, or PDFs with the intention of helping students study.
By uploading any form of coursework, students are able to earn IQ points within the app.
“Right now, the conversion rate is 100 IQ points to $1,” Vitas said. “This is subject to change as we adapt to the new system. In order for students to qualify for monetization, they have to upload a minimum of 10 resources. This is also subject to change.”
Currently, there is no anonymous user feature, so students’ names are displayed.
“We’re actually working on an anonymous posting feature,” Vitas said. “This might just encourage people to upload more resources on the platform if they don’t want their name to be associated with any kind of coursework they submit.”
Kipras said that the app is not meant to be used as a tool for cheating.
“In our terms of use agreement, technically, we prohibit any kind of cheating or any kind of material that would be copyrighted or maybe the professor wouldn’t want you to upload,” Vitas said.
One example of a document OK to upload is a past test that is no longer in circulation, Vitas said.
As of now, Vitas is the sole moderator, but plans to add a team of moderators in the future. Group administrators would remove individuals or delete posts in the study group they created.
The app began as a Knight Hacks project in the spring 2025 semester.
A team of five students originally designed the app as an online study group app that also allowed resource sharing.
Yet for Vitas, what started off as a school project became his full-time job after the app’s launch this semester.
“They understood that they didn’t really put in the rest of the work to get it to where it is now,” Vitas said. “That was primarily me. I’m pretty much a solo developer.”
Vitas explained UniShare uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT tokens, which is why UniShare’s AI can work quickly, he said. Right now, Vitas said he is working on creating an AI model of his own, so UniShare won’t have to rely on OpenAI in the future.
“So it uses the API in the background. We just provide the front-end experience,” Vitas said.
As of now, UniShare is only available at 15 colleges, including Florida State University, Harvard University, University of Miami, University of South Florida and Stanford University.
To sign up for UniShare, users need a code, which either Vitas or any existing user can generate.
Vitas plans to expand UniShare to international universities, the general public and eliminate the invite-only system. Then, working on seeing how UniShare can help the public with their daily lives as well.
Pablo Matamoros, junior civil engineering major, studies in the Student Union on Oct. 7.
Bianca Lopez
Pablo Matamoros, a junior civil engineering major, said his favorite feature is the textbook page uploads, because they help him understand concepts and their solutions.
“By the time I see the problem, I see the solution, then I can handle those types of problems again,” Matamoros said.
Matamoros talked about how he likes not having to give out his information anymore to meet with students to study in person. However, he wishes the app were connected to the Canvas Webcourses.
“Right now, I cannot connect to Canvas because I need something that’s called a Canvas token,” Matamoros said. “And basically, the Canvas token, the only way I can get it is by the school.”
Matamoros said he cannot create one because the school limits the number of Canvas tokens you can create. He’d like for UCF to implement UniShare on the available Canvas tokens so he can connect his Canvas to UniShare.
Apps such as UCF Here and Canvas for iOS have a token on Canvas.
He reached out to Canvas administrators to have them generate an access token on his behalf, as the Canvas site suggested.
“Basically, they told me there’s no sort of way right now to,” Matamoros said.