Shiksha Expert Meet 2011 - Delhi Chapter

We are extremely delighted to inform you all that Shiksha Expert Meet 2011 - Delhi Chapter was a phenomenal success, not only in terms of Experts turnout but also because of extremely valuable suggestions we received on Product and Marketing end of Shiksha Cafe. Bigger and better than the last year's meet, the Delhi Chapter of the Expert Meet was conducted on September 10, 2011. Another Expert Meet is on its way and will take place in Mumbai on 24th September, 2011.

Shiksha Experts who attended the Meet were quite a diverse group - ranging from Prashant Chauhan who has just finished his BBA and is looking forward to enroll in MBA to  Mr  S K Saxena who have over 25 years of experience in the field of education. From groomed education experts to techno-savvy youth, the suggestions and feedbacks poured in from all sides and brought to light many fresh perspectives. Here, we are covering just the main points of the Shiksha Expert Meet but if you want to experience the real heat, remember you still have a chance to be part of it.

List of participants in the Expert Meet:

From Left to Right clock-wise:

From Left to Right clock-wise:

We were really humbled to see how our Panel of Experts had come all the way from Kurukshetra, Ambala, and Chandigarh to attend the Meet in Delhi. This alone speaks of their passion to provide right and reliable information and advice to students and help them make informed decisions about their career and education choices.

Shiksha.com Achievements

After the warm opening speech to welcome all the Shiksha Expert Meet 2011 - Delhi Chapter Participants, Mr. Prakash Sangam discussed how Shiksha Forums have helped the website grow and serve its purpose more fruitfully. He told our Panel of Experts that both the number of visitors and the time a user spends on Shiksha.com looking for more information has gone up considerably.

As of now, Shiksha.com:

• receives 32% more traffic than its competitors (as stated by Comscore Report).
• is part of No. 1 Internet Company in India - Infoedge India Pvt. Ltd.
• has database of over 1.45 million students, 75% more than last year.
• received over one million visits in last one year, up by 50%.
• received 2000 entries for its first TV Commercial that was launched in April 2011 across 15 cities in India and targeted users in the age group of 18 to 24 years.

Shiksha's Facebook page was launched in November 2010 and has about 70,000 fans now. Recently, it has also launched a Twitter page by the name of ShikshaBulletin and it's youtube page is underway. We are leaving no stones unturned to interact with our young audience.

Last year, Shiksha.com also participated in about 20 Education Events across India. We also send out mailers to students about experts that are active on our website to promote interaction between experts and students.

Actions on Feedbacks Received in Shiksha Expert Meet 2010

Mr Prakash Sangam also pointed out how the feedbacks received in Shiksha Expert Meet 2010 had helped the Product Development team to offer better solutions to students as well as experts on Shiksha forums. Two specific exams that he quoted were:

1. Last year, few Shiksha Experts had expressed concern that 'those who gave one-word answers like Yes or No to a particular query' and 'those who took pains to understand the need and query of a student, research it, and give a detailed answer' got same number of points. This seemed unfair to many experts who were taking pains to offer better advice to students. The Product Team took notice of the feedback and introduced 'Reputation Index', which takes length of an answer, validity of answers, number of thumbs-up answers of a particular user gets, number of followers one has and the number of 'best answers' he or she gets into account and give points accordingly. This measure has definitely made distribution of points more equitable and has considerably impoved student experience as well, because the quality of answers has now gone up.
2. Some of the experts also said that they would like more details about the students to give answers more suited to a particular students. Since then, a longer form has been introduced by the Product Team for the students that capture their specifications in greater detail.

Moreover, the Q&A section has now been expanded to Shiksha Cafe, which has two more sections now: Discussions (for open-ended questions) and Announcements (just for informing students about a particular happening). Efforts have also been made by Shiksha Content Team to make sure that all the latest news & happenings and education-related events are being updated on Shiksha website on timely basis to keep students and education experts informed and updated.

What does Shiksha Community do for you?

A few participants quipped that they lose interest in answering questions. It is only expert engagement from Aneeket that keeps bringing them back to Shiksha forums but there is little motivation for them otherwise. Mr Prakash Sangam rightly pointed out that any monetary benefits will mean the risk of turning the forum experts into mercenaries, which will defeat the very purpose of the forum - of offering free, unbiased advice to students.

Mr S K Saxena, who has been in Education field for 26 years, pointed out that social contribution should only be self-motivated. He shared how he uses Shiksha.com to offer better advice to his students while counselling them about their future. Mr Aneeket shared the case of Mr Khushwant Jain, a Chief Advisor at Shiksha forums, who got better weightage than his peers at campus hiring because of interest and passion he had shown in helping out his fellow students. Mr Himal Ghimiray, who was present at the Expert Meet, shared a similar experience with the participants too.

Dr Piyush Juneja shared how he and his boss celebrated the occasion when he got the Certificate of Principal Advisor. All the participants agreed that being active depends on an individual but the Brand Manager - Ms Rachna Malhotra - promised that she will soon introduce some contests for experts and offer them prizes to keep up the motivation factor, a suggestion which was received by unanimous applause from everybody.

And yes Dr Piyush, we will certainly have couple movie tickets as the Prize.

Important Suggestions and Feebacks

Shiksha Expert Meet 2011 - Delhi Chapter was quite a success in terms of suggestions and feedbacks we received from the participants. Our team is already working on them right now. Here are some of them:

• Dr Piyush Janeja, our Clinical Research and Medicine category Expert, rightly pointed out that even when he chooses 'No, Thanks' or 'Don't show it to me again' as an option to the discussion being posted on Shiksha Facebook, the entire page refreshes taking him back to the first page of the Q&A page. And the window keeps popping up too. Many other members faced similar problems.

          Mr Nasr Khan promised to get that technical glitch out of the way as soon as possible.

Dr Piyush also pointed out that an application which will allow him to post an answer to a question or discussion through his mobile would be extremely convenient for busy experts. The suggestion received a good applause from the participants.

• Mr Vineet Kapoor pointed out that irrespective of the Facebook ID you have mapped at Shiksha, it still posts the query or article on whichever Facebook account open at the time on system.

          Mr Nasr Khan took note of the problem too and his team is already working on it.

There was quite a discussion on how to reduce the number of questions that go unanswered on Shiksha.com. Mr. Gautam Joshi suggested that perhaps 'Live Experts' section can be introduced where students can directly contact experts live at the time. Dr Piyush suggested that generic questions asked to an institute should be opened to experts, if they can be answered by those who are more expert in researching educational websites.

• Regarding sharing of contact details, Mr Prakash Sangam commented that if an expert gives a detailed answer and adds a line containing his or her contact details at the end, it is acceptable. Only spamming, on the other hand, is strictly prohibited on Shiksha forums. Similarly, he also said that if someone wants to say something to a student that might shed negative light on an educational institution, it should be communicated as a private message to the student instead of putting it on forums.

Apart from the above suggestions, there were discussions on whether there should be reputation index for colleges on the website too, should the unanswered questions be closed after 14 days or 30 days, questions or discussions that are similar to those posted on the website already should be re-directed to older links to make sure that repository of knowledge does not lay scattered, and whether there should be a minimum word limit for putting in questions.

• An important suggestion was that experts should try to prompt students to share more details if required and try to give them a better answer rather than not answering vague questions at all.
• On Product End, some of the suggestions were:
  • There should be separate logins for students and experts.
  • Experts should receive notification on mail, Shiksha homepage, and mobile whenever they are mentioned in a mail. (@Mention is a new feature that has been introduced to Shiksha Cafe to refer a question or a discussion to a particular expert).
• Mr. Nirmal Bhagat suggested that Shiksha should try to reach out to more people by organizing career counseling sessions in schools, colleges and institutes. Shiksha Experts could also be a part of Shiksha stalls being set up in education events to make students aware of their efforts.

As you can see, Shiksha Expert Meet 2011 - Delhi Chapter would not have ended on time, if not for snacks. We will keep you posted about the latest developments on Shiksha and Shiksha Cafe. Keep answering!

Source: Ruchi Shrimali (Shiksha Team)