Study Glossary
Plain-English definitions for the terms that come up most in study science and lecture capture.
- Spaced Repetition
- A study method that schedules each flashcard review at increasing intervals, just as you are about to forget it. Spacing reviews over days and weeks takes less total time than re-reading and leads to much stronger long-term recall.
- Active Recall
- Retrieving information from memory without looking at your notes, typically by testing yourself with questions or flashcards. Active recall is more effective for retention than passive review because the act of retrieving strengthens the memory.
- Lecture Capture
- Recording a lecture (audio, video, or both) so you can revisit it after class. Lecture capture lets you listen more attentively in the room, knowing the content is saved for later review.
- Transcript
- A written record of spoken audio, produced word for word.
- Polmi generates a transcript from your recorded lecture so you can search, skim, and highlight without re-listening.
- Summary
- A condensed version of a longer text that surfaces the main points and key terms.
- Polmi lifts a summary from the transcript so you can orient yourself quickly before diving into details.
- Flashcard
- A question-and-answer pair used for self-testing.
- Polmi generates flashcards from your lecture transcript and uses spaced repetition to schedule when each card comes up for review.
- Study Group
- A group of students who share lecture notes and study materials with each other.
- In Polmi, creating or joining a study group, sharing your own lectures, and reading what classmates share are all free; paid plans cover recording your own lectures.
- Language Detection
- Automatic identification of the spoken language in a recording.
- Polmi detects the language of a lecture without any manual setting, so transcription works across languages out of the box.