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Many years ago I was studying with the Open University. During that time I bought a revision aid. The basic principle was that you wrote out all you knew about a topic immediately after learning it. The note pages were marked so that they could be referenced against a sort of calendar. The idea was that you read through your notes something like the next day, again a week later and again something like 4 weeks later.

I recall that the thinking was that the frequency set coincided with the way your brain moves stuff from short- to long-term memory.

I'm just about to start studying again and I wondered if anyone might know what the frequency for reviewing one's notes might have been.

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  • Are you asking about what is a good revision frequency from a scientific perspective? Or are you asking about what revision history was used in the particular software that you used to use? If its about software, I imagine it would be important to know what the software was called.
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 3:45
  • I'm really asking about what a good revision frequency might be. As I said, I'm about to start studying again and would like to give myself the best chance of making a decent fist of it.
    – Stuart Hemming
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 6:48
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    Although this question is about Academia and learning, Your question seems opinion-based to me. Learning habits differs from one to another. Some people learn fast, some other need more frequent revisions. There is no solid advice here.
    – enthu
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 11:19
  • Are you looking for an answer based on personal experience, or research with supporting citation? If you're mainly interested in the latter, you should edit the question to say so, and also add the reference-request tag.
    – ff524
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 13:07
  • @ff524, I'm looking for an answer based on personal experience. As I've said, I'm about to start studying again and am looking for a as much of a leg up as possible.
    – Stuart Hemming
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 18:29

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There are several algorithms for scheduled repetition of information on flash cards. It's possible that the software you liked uses one of these. This Wikipedia article on spaced repetiton discusses Pimsleur's graduated-interval recall and Leitner system, among others. This isn't the easiest topic to search for, but the Wikipedia article calls it "spaced repetition", and includes a list of alternative names. That should help you do further research.

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