BeyondExams: 2021 in review
How we grew beyond exams last year
INTRODUCTION
Education begins the moment we see children as innately wise and capable beings. Reward and Punishment are the lowest forms of education. Education, above all, is to know the joy of wondering about life, not having ready-made answers but it is the training of the mind to think beyond the realms of books, exams, and grades.
BeyondExams is a nonprofit organization that strives to promote a learning and teaching environment. We have made an effort to create a safe space of learning where people can learn skills that peak their interests and the teachers could teach skills that creatively satisfy them. We also aim to equip university and college students with skills and experience that land them the best-suited internships and eventually a job placement of their interests.
We started our journey in October with 2 members. Now, as of, we are a proud family of 13 members. Since then, we have organized many initiatives and connected with many people that have shared our cause. We have successfully designed a BeyondExams website that communicates our vision perfectly. We believe that trust is built between an organization and its well-wishers and consumers through transparency.
We’re here to take you through our journey from October 2020 to December 2021. This is a brief account of all that we have done in these past 14 months, why and how we did them, what went right, and what all could have been done to avoid the mistakes made.
OCTOBER 2020
Summary
A Twitter post by Dr. Malpani kickstarts an experiment in education
Vision
Create collections of best videos on Youtube for I-XII grade NCERT syllabus
Back then, it was just supposed to be a python script to get Youtube data and show it in a list.
Efforts
TASK
TIME REQUIRED
Setup AWS server for hosting the website and the python scripts
2 Days
Integrate YouTube APIs for fetching video details and facilitating search queries
2 Days
Given a topic in NCERT books, use keyword extraction technologies to find tags relevant to the topic from NCERT eBook.
For these keywords, use YouTube API to get a list of videos.
3 Days
Make use of the publicly available data about the videos like number of likes, dislikes, subscribers, comments, title, description, etc. to create a ranking algorithm for these videos.
1 Week
Make frontend to display these collections of videos
1 Week
NOVEMBER 2020
Summary
MVP is ready. People could watch Youtube videos on our platform and we could extract Youtube videos programmatically.
Dr. Malpani and I started synergizing at a philosophical level. Our frustration at the current state of the Indian education ecosystem and our ambition of helping build a better one slowly started to transform this short-term experiment into something bigger.
Vision
Profit companies are using investor money to buy the education ecosystem.
Most families and their children are getting buried under the expensive, yet outdated curriculum.
A change is in order to make quality education affordable.
Efforts
What has been done:
People can watch educational YouTube videos
Categories of contents
Tests and Notes
What is left:
Social Interactions
Many more categories of content
NCERT textbooks’ topic extraction for recommending video resources
What are we trying to achieve:
People should not be duped or fooled by companies like Byjus and WhiteHatJr to get quality education.
People should easily be able to afford quality education and corresponding guidance to learn anything they want
DECEMBER 2020
Summary
A more elaborate plan starts to form to build an educational learning portal.
Follow the 80-20 rule to improve the Indian education ecosystem:
Provide 80% of what the top market players provide, add 20% of goodwill and novelty.
Gradually, you will end up with a far superior product or service.
LearnWIthYoutube.org comes into existence
Vision
Have an offering for each actor in education: Students, parents, teachers, schools, startups.
How can we accomplish this?
First figure out what it is that these big EdTech companies are offering that has got people so interested in them.
Then provide the public with a free and convenient way of getting that through LearWithYoutube.
More concrete steps that we have already figured out:
Having learning journeys that students can follow to gain a decent understanding of a topic. It can be language-specific as well.
Students should be able to keep track of which videos/ learning journeys they have watched.
Like, comment and Report
Add private and public notes for various timestamps on videos.
Transcription of videos
NCERT textbooks topic extraction for recommending video resources
Discussion forums for various learning paths or even individual videos
Report Card and analytics for tests attempted and videos watched by the students.
A student profile/ resume mentioning what they have learnt and how well they know these topics.
Portals for parents to see what their child has learnt so far and alos set targets for their children to achieve in order to perform well on exams or get better jobs.
Portal for teachers to chat with students, recommend new videos, make new learning journeys and accept payments
27th DEC 2020
Next 3- 4 months:
A lot more specific features will be added, but these are the general major points.
Students
Learning paths for each topic, chapter, subject and class
[03 January 2020]
Live discussion forums for each video/ topic
[04 January 2020]
Connect with teachers and students all over the world
[January]
Read additional notes added by Teachers or Students
Attempt Quizzes, Revise Topics
[January]
Students get real- time analytics and feedback about their performance and where they stand with students in their class/ city/ country/ globally
[Last 2 weeks of January]
A publicly available resume about students’ journey so far at LearnWithYoutube
[February]
Get recommendations as to what students should learn next to achieve a goal. (Example: Get our students selected in IITs, or score above 90% in Xth)
Teachers
Manage their own classrooms :
Public classrooms where anyone can enroll and attend (open to all)
[February]
Private classrooms where anyone can apply but only few selected can enroll
[February]
Discussion Forum (Explore best features of existing forums)
[January]
Make learning paths:
Upload their own videos
Select from YouTube
Doubt Session
Through chats
Through one-on-one video calls (can be recorded)
Analytics of each student’s performance
[End of January]
Add notes and test
[January]
Parents
Analytics about their children’s performance
[End of January]
Select what your child should learn next
[February]
Enroll students to different classes and learning journeys so that they are taught by the best professors and have the best resources for each topic, chapter or subject.
[February]
Directly connect with Teachers
[January]
Get recommendations about what their child should learn next based on a pre- chosen future goal (Example: Get my student selected in the IITs, or score above 90% in Xth)
Universities/ Tuitions
Modernisation Plans (Future Prospects) :
We can also collaborate with industry leaders and equip them with skills relevant to their corporations. In return, these companies can hire interns or full time employees based on Students’ profile and analytics available on our platform.
There can be charges for premium services offered to these companies.
We can partner with Universities to provide virtual learning solutions for their Teachers, Parents and Students. This service can also be monetized.
Teachers can create paid classrooms for their doubt sessions etc.
We can take a small slice (5-10%) of their fee
Total time all this development may take:
4-6 months of incremental development
(New features keep getting added, overall system keeps getting more stable, each day)
JANUARY 2021 - FEBRUARY 2021
Summary
Dr. Malpani starts showering us with 100s of connections, ideas and mentoring.
The team starts taking shape.
LearnWithYoutube starts becoming more than a side project.
My full-time role was still as co-founder of Precisely
But infinite ideas and feature requests start popping up. Things start moving so fast, it becomes harder to keep a track of what to do, what not to do, and why to do it at all.
Vision
The aim is now to get as many great minds working together as possible.
The Advisory Board pitched for the first time.
The aim is to build an educational platform that offers at least 80% of what's best industry offering.
Efforts
Backend, frontend, design, marketing: The focus is to build, experiment, do market research and keep moving forward.
Experiments
SunoKitaab Integration
Accept Donations
Kishlay Askify
Public Profile for users
MARCH 2021 - APRIL 2021
Summary
Team at Precisely breaks up
BeyondExams finally has a full-time founder
A complete vacuum starts forming between the marketing team led by Kirti and the product team led by Pankaj.
Vision
The aim is to build an educational platform that offers at least 80% of what's the best industry offering.
Efforts
Building a superior educational product is the top priority.
Efforts to build an Advisory Board are in full-swing. 5 top minds are excited to get onboarded.
Lots of experiments in education are being planned and integrated.
Experiments
WhatsApp Chats to BeyondExams Chat
Partner with other non- profits
Third party integrations
Question- Answer Discussion Forum
Time Bound video notes
Reading materials for videos lessons
MAY 2021
Summary
We complete the BeyondExams platform with Courses, Videos, Notes, QnA, Reading Materials and a LOT MORE!
We have become 80% of what competitors are doing. Time to bring in the 20% innovation & novelty.
Metrics
10+ creators on board
50+ courses created
1.2k new users in 1 month
215 returning users
Vision
Now that we have a decent portal in place, the time is right to build a far superior learning experience for students and teachers.
Efforts
Website was going down a lot. We were learning and building a stable release.
Mobile support for BE was being built.
People started creating courses. Lots of issues came into the picture.
First advisory board meeting planned.
Experiments
BeyondExams Classrooms
WIP Tags
YouTube video Translations
Each video users watch or each course users enrol in should show their learning growth on their profile.
JUNE 2021 - JULY 2021
Summary
Populating content (courses, QnA, Reading Materials, Notes) on every domain imaginable
Increasing our visibility on Google Search and social media takes top priority
Metrics
10+ creators onboarded
50+ courses created
4 BeyondExams Blogs published
Vision
The platform has been built. But each user wants to learn their own unique topics.
BeyondExams will start losing a lot of potential users if they don't find what they are looking for.
So the aim is to populate BE with the best, free educational resources from all over the Internet.
Efforts
Improving the platform, fixing bugs, populating content
Outreaching to course creators
Medium Blogs
Experiments
Syllabus superstructures: Topics & Classes
Automatically fetch Quora answers for QnA
Automatically fetch Youtube playlists as courses
Easy Language translation
Specify start time and end time for videos in courses
Help Google know about all our videos & courses
AUGUST 2021
Summary
The portal receives a lot of goodwill and public support.
Public testing leads to lots of insights, issues and needs for improvements.
Metrics
70,000+ BeyondExams videos now enlisted on YouTube
10,000 QnA added to BeyondExams
Vision
Building credibility and actual use-cases around BE portal become top-priority
Efforts
Endorsements, students setting their own targets, hands-on projects, certifications.
Extensive testing and marketing efforts start
Experiments
BeyondExams in Kashmir
Interact with users through Emails
Allow users to earn and spen BE keys
Automatically fetch Quora answers for QnA
Public leaderboard of our top course creators
Public Leaderboard of our top students
Automatically fetch YouTube Chapters as BeyondExams Notes
Contact Youtubers to endorse courses
SEPTEMBER 2021
Summary
The BE Keys system is widely integrated across the platform.
We launched the 5-skills-in-30-days challenge to test how effectively students can enjoy learning through BE.
We launched a 10-days internal team competition where smaller teams became their own managers, delegators and doers.
Metrics
800+ daily new user traffic
100+ students join our month long beta testing
15 students get certified through BeyondExams Courses
Vision
Our aim shifts to identifying ways to reach the target of a million users. (Dec 2021 is fast approaching!)
Building a great user experience around the platform continues to be a top priority.
Efforts
Testing with real students meant new bugs, issues and small yet essential feature requests were arriving every single day.
The entire month was spent providing the students with a good experience through our platform
Experiments
Map out learning journeys of successful people from Linkedin. Offer similar learning journeys through BE.
Emoji Rating for videos
Quiz UI
Popular courses section on Homepage.
OCTOBER 2021
Summary
Beta testing with 100+ students is complete. We identify a major mismatch in our vision and students' needs.
Focus shifts from feature additions to increasing user retention & engagement
We start creating deeper insights into our users' behavior through the use of data
Metrics
50+ student reviews on social media
Paid internships awarded to students who used our portal effectively
A single BeyondExams post receives 3,000+ likes on Twitter
Vision
Understanding and addressing students' needs through our portal becomes a top priority.
Up Till now, the focus was on building an effective learning portal
Efforts
Homepage Design
List
Experiments
Integration of data analytics portals: Hotjar, Google Analytics, Survicate surveys, etc.
NOVEMBER 2021
Summary
The team learned to work independently and evaluate each other better
LearFromPeers became a success story.
Metrics
7+ employee reviews on Glassdoor
Our search improves from 7-10 seconds to 0.1 - 2 seconds
Vision
Understanding and addressing students' needs through our portal becomes a top priority.
Efforts
Landing Pages finally get deployed
Building White- Label BeyondExams App
Brainstorming of Marketing Efforts
Data driven design efforts
Microinteractions + Gamifications
Experiments
Lightweight wysiwyg editor for the courses section or Q&A Section
2 Trending Videos each day
Creators should be able to GO LIVE
Typesense integration for superfast search
DECEMBER 2021
Summary
Team goes smaller. Needs become larger
Marketing strategies get a facelift in hopes of reaching the goal of a million users in the next 3 months
BeyondExams finalises a 3-months paid bootcamps with guaranteed internship selection.
Removing the clutter of courses on BeyondExams so only top courses are seen.
Metrics
We are able to reduce AWS costs by 400%
2 months running costs sustained through non profit earnings
Vision
University students want good internships and jobs. Let's test if the vast services offered by BE can help students with this aspect of higher education
Help teachers start using BE to increase engagement and student interest.
Efforts
Courses page redesign
BE paid bootcamp training
Payment Gateway Interaction
Students now receive certificate on course completion
Projects section gets a face-lift
Tangible Outcomes Blog
Experiments
Discord channel for community engagement
Help course creators earn through BeyondExams
These 14 months have been a roller coaster ride for us, experimenting with new ideas and vision. Setting up a vision for each month and making different efforts to fulfill the set vision. We strive to always increase our engagement and set new goals for us to achieve. We hope to continue making strides in education. Here is our vision for the coming year.
NEXT 3 MONTHS (JANUARY 2022 - MARCH 2022)
BeyondExams helps its first batch of 60 students get internships by learning effectively through the platform.
Advisory Board meets every month to contribute towards a smarter and more educated India
BeyondExams launches easy guides, tutorials, and support for students, teachers, and parents to use the BE portal for effective, relevant, and fun online learning.
All previous experiments are publicly launched or publicly rejected with complete reports and tutorials.
BeyondExams is able to boost its daily traffic to 1,000 new users per day.
END OF 2022 (APRIL 2022 - DECEMBER 2022)
BeyondExams has achieved its target of helping a million users.
Students, teachers, parents and schools start launching local chapters of BeyondExams in their communities
BeyondExams partners with governments to provide policy-level recommendations along with implementation pathways for more effective, fun learning.
CONCLUSION
We have bought into the idea that education is about training and ‘success’, defined monetarily rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make and develop minds and skills, not careers. A successful career is just a by product of the the nurturing and training of the mind
BeyondExams’ journey to achieve this goal has just begun and we still have a long way to go. Everyday, we are trying to take mini baby steps to create a better environment for education where all the students and teachers thrive. We believe that education should be about enhancing horizons, about having a larger version of life. We hope that you understand our cause and join us in maintaining a world that celebrates learning, teaching and education, in general.