The short version: Obsidian for students usually means a blank vault and a lot of good intentions in week one. LectureVault is an 18-file plain-Markdown study vault that puts lecture notes, courses, exams, revision and grades in one place: 17 Markdown files plus a LICENSE.txt, no code, no scripts, no plugins required. It is $1.00 USD as an intro price on Gumroad, verified against the live page today, and the price may step up as sales accrue, so check the page before you buy.
Students who try Obsidian for a semester tend to hit the same three failures. Notes are captured but never reviewed. Exam dates live in four different places. And nobody knows their running grade until the results page loads. LectureVault is our attempt to fix all three with structure you can read, rather than with another app.
Obsidian for students: one vault for the whole semester
The idea is a student vault in Obsidian where lecture notes, courses, exams and grades all live as plain files in one vault. The kit contains zero URLs, zero accounts and zero network steps.
Here is the verified inventory, nothing more:
- Two lecture-capture templates: a Cornell three-zone variant and an outline-hierarchy variant
- A per-course map of content (MOC) for each course
- A semester planner
- An exam countdown dashboard and a semester overview dashboard, each with a filled example and a blank shell
- Revision topics and a spaced-repetition ladder
- A study-session log
- A running-grade tracker
- A flashcard inbox
- An SQ3R course-reading note
- A study-methods guide, plus two fully reconciled worked examples
Vanilla Obsidian, Dataview optional
Every table renders in stock Obsidian. The kit contains a single Dataview snippet, and it sits under the standard OPTIONAL banner so you can ignore it. The kit states, verbatim, "No plugins required."
A Cornell notes template that actually runs a semester
Free Cornell printables give you one page. They do not tell you what happens to it after Tuesday's lecture. That gap is where the system lives.
LectureVault ships two lecture-capture variants that share one front-matter contract of four keys: course, date, lecturer and topics. Files follow one naming rule, for example PSY101-Lecture-03-2026-09-02.md, so a course's lectures sort themselves in order. Each variant ends with a four-checkbox questions-to-review handoff, which is the bridge between taking notes and revising them.
Cornell three-zone or outline hierarchy
The Cornell variant uses three zones for cues, notes and summary. The outline variant uses a nested hierarchy for lecturers who talk in structure rather than in prose. Because both share the same four keys, the course page can list either kind without caring which you used.
The per-course MOC
Each course gets one page. It holds the syllabus facts, an exam status ladder with four words (not started, reviewing, done, locked), and an assignments table whose weights sum to 100%. Below that sit a plain lecture index and a revision-topics rollup.
Spaced repetition without another app
Spaced repetition has a reputation for needing software. LectureVault implements it as a visible ladder in plain Markdown: the day after class, then +3, +7, +14, +30 days, and a final pre-exam pass.
Each revision topic carries a confidence score from 1 to 5 and a next-review date. The dates are visible and editable. The kit includes a frozen six-pass worked example, so you can see what a topic looks like after the full ladder has run.
| Pass | When |
|---|
| 1 | Day after class |
| 2 | +3 days |
| 3 | +7 days |
| 4 | +14 days |
| 5 | +30 days |
| 6 | Final pre-exam pass |
The flashcard inbox and the study-session log
Flashcards get IDs of exactly five characters, in the form FC-##, with a due or drilled status and a handoff rule that moves anything you keep missing into revision topics. If you want to use Anki or another spaced-repetition tool, the kit tells you how to export, but that is an instruction, not a file. We do not ship an export.
The study-session log uses a closed vocabulary of five method words, plus minutes, focus from 1 to 5, an outcome and a next action. The worked example totals four sessions, 205 minutes, a 51.3-minute average and a focus of 4.0.
Know your running grade before finals week
The grade tracker computes weighted points to two decimals. The rule that matters is this: rows marked UNSCORED are excluded from the running grade and are never counted as zero. A tracker that treats unmarked work as zero tells you that you are failing in week three, which is just wrong.
The worked example reconciles to 88.6% from 65% of the weight counted so far. The projection formula is written out as arithmetic, which means it shows you what the remaining weight would do under a score you choose. It is not a prediction, and the kit does not pretend to forecast anything.
Exam countdown and semester overview
Each dashboard ships twice: a filled Fall 2026 example and a blank shell. In the example, the countdown values of 9, 14, 38, 48, 49, 50 and 51 days are recomputed from 2026-10-27, and four finals fall inside a four-day window from 2026-12-14 to 2026-12-17. The semester planner adds a key-dates table, a deadlines-this-week list with a whole-days-left rule, and a weekly rhythm.
SQ3R and the study-methods guide
The kit includes an SQ3R note for course reading: survey, question, read, recite, review. Its non-scope is stated plainly. There are no citations, no reference manager and no bibliography export. If you need that, our Zotero-to-thesis workflow post covers the research side.
The study-methods guide is written in original prose and covers Cornell, active recall, spaced repetition and SQ3R. Each method is mapped to the template that implements it.
Notion vs Obsidian for students: own your files
The Notion student-template market is crowded. When we looked, it showed 716 results with a 4509-rated incumbent at $24.99, and we are deliberately not selling into it. If you already live in Notion and like it, stay there.
The argument for Obsidian is about ownership. Your notes are local Markdown files. There is no account to create, no subscription to keep and nothing that stops opening when a service changes its plans. If you are coming from Notion and want to see how small a starting vault can be, our 5-minute starter vault post is a gentler first step.
What we found when we looked for competitors
Our market research found no direct incumbent in the Obsidian student-vault niche. We searched Gumroad discover queries and autocomplete. That is a search observation, not a market study, and it does not mean nobody else has built one. The alternatives worth naming:
| Option | What you get | The catch |
|---|
| Free Cornell-notes printables | One page, free | No system: nothing connects notes to revision, exams or grades |
| Generic study apps with subscriptions | Capture and sync | They monetize capture with a subscription and guarantee none of the three failures |
| LectureVault | 18 plain files, one front-matter contract | A structure you must still use |
If you also use AI tools in your studies, our AI tools for students post covers that side separately. The kit itself is plain Markdown, with no code, no scripts and no network steps.
Worked examples you can check
There are two reconciled worked examples. The first is a fictional Fall 2026 semester for a student named Nora Feldt: five courses, 16 credits, a GPA of 3.20 and 24 revision topics. The second is an 18-lecture PSY101 course. Both reconcile, so you can check the figures yourself.
Two statements from the kit, which we repeat here verbatim:
This kit is study structure, not a guarantee of any grade, GPA, admission, or degree.
All names of people, courses, instructors and figures in the worked example are fictional.
Where to get it
Disclosure: this post links to a product we made. If you buy through it, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Product page: LectureVault, the Obsidian Student Lecture Notes and Study Vault on Gumroad.
The live price is $1.00 USD intro, two-signal verified on 2026-10-27 at 23:00: the page's structured-data price and its price meta tag both read 1.0 USD. This product is on a price ladder. At 10 confirmed sales it steps to $1.50, and it then rises by 20% every 5 sales up to a $5.00 cap. So treat $1.00 as the current intro price, not a promise, and check the page before buying.
An honest verdict
LectureVault is a set of structures for a student who wants lecture notes, revision, exams and grades to connect. It will not attend the lectures or do the revision.
Three honest limits. First, it is a structure, so it only works if you fill it in; the ladder does nothing for a topic you never open. Second, it is manual by design: there is no automated capture, and the Anki or SRS export is an instruction rather than a file. Third, this kit has no published reviews or ratings, because we have no buyer feedback to quote and we will not invent any.
Licensing
The license is PERSONAL USE - NO RESALE. The full text is in LICENSE.txt inside the zip. Use it for your own studies; do not repackage or sell it.
Who it is NOT for
We would rather you skip it than buy the wrong thing.
- People who enjoy building their own structure. If designing the vault is the part you like, finished templates will feel like they skip the fun.
- Anyone expecting a grade or GPA outcome. The kit is study structure and nothing more.
- Notion-only users. This is a plain-Markdown vault for Obsidian.
- Buyers who want to resell. The license is personal use only.
- People who want automated capture. If you want voice-to-notes, this is a structure, not a recorder.
Wrapping up
If you want a student vault in Obsidian that covers lecture notes, spaced review, exam dates and an honest running grade without an extra app, LectureVault is our answer at the current intro price of $1.00. The product page is right here. If you are weighing a broader set of templates first, our Obsidian Mega Pack post compares the options.
Corrections and questions are welcome. If we got a fact wrong or something is missing, write to nandminc2020@gmail.com and we will fix it.
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