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How did the project start?
The idea for the project came about when one of the company’s co-founders became exasperated with trying to help his son revise for his forthcoming GCSE mock exams and ultimately GCSE final exams.
He felt that there had to be a better way that a parent could help a child prepare for GCSE exams than asking questions from a text book or notebook.
He also felt that as more and more GCSE students owned iPods and MP3 and MP4 players it would be sensible to use these mediums to deliver the content.
It was also felt that ideally, the content available should be audio broken down into titles of between 30 and 45 minutes, then further broken down into chapters of between 3 and 5 minutes. Revision periods based on GCSE titles would therefore be of a similar period to lessons.
We felt that the service we were proposing to offer would be best provided by a website which potential customers could browse and buy from. The website would include audio samples thus enabling potential customers to examine what the company was offering.
What options did you consider?
Given that we were setting out to provide downloads for GCSE students across all examination boards, the only way we could do this was via a website-type solution. As mentioned in the box above, iPod and MP3 ownership amongst target audience is almost universal.
The idea for GCSEPod was simply to make it really easy for students to be able to choose which subject they wanted to learn about and be able to download materials to their iPod as easily as they download tracks from iTunes.
There are a three other businesses offering GCSE content in downloadable form. BBC Bitesize, Letts - Revise on the Move and Examstutor. We looked carefully at each of these and determined that there was sufficient gap in the market for GCSEPod, where we would have a more complete offering, in terms of number of curriculum areas covered for each subject, plus a significantly higher quality, richer offering with real voices delivering the audio in an engaging way supported by original images.
In short, the web solution would be the only way which could facilitate the delivery of this kind of product.
What help and expertise did you receive?
It took us just short of 2 years from the inception of the idea through to receiving Investor funds, which we did in June 08. Investment has been through NEEMF, North East Finance’s Design and Creative Fund and Private Investor funds.
The Roundhouse were selected as an organisation who could not only provide a great Website design solution, but also a solid technical solution too. They have delivered both in spades.
Intellectual Property - We commissioned Philips (Eindhoven) to provide us with a Digital Watermarking Solution for MP4, M4a/b files. We apply a transactional watermark to each downloaded file to help us to identify where it came from (ie who bought it) in the event that our terms and conditions are breached.
Did you face and challenges or learn any lessons?
One of the main challenges faced was in making the navigation of the site appeal to the target audience, sufficient for them to engage with it and to keep coming back. Following extensive research with more than 250 ‘target market’ students in both the State and Private sectors, where each of them completed a 15 question survey asking detailed, specific questions relating to the use of portable devices as a learning tool and the presentation and level of information required by them in a website , we arrived at the ‘graphical icon navigation solution’. This is also supported by extensive use of subject-based colour identification and a user-friendly ‘accordian navigation’ on the homepage which the users love.
One other key challenge was the packaging of information on the ‘title page’. In this area we include a detailed, curriculum-relevant, description of the content available, the chapters, the duration, the price, the author, the narrator, the exam board relevance, the reviews, testimonials, RSS feeds, bookmarks as well as the video sample and all the buying functionality. To achieve all this has taken quite a considerable amount of thinking, development and testing to ensure that the user can make an informed purchase decision.
Our GCSE content is written by our Subject Specialist GCSE Teachers, of which there are in excess of 30 now, content is then edited by subject specialists and narrated by professional voice-over artists in our own recording facility here in Newcastle. We have elected to use one voice per subject for the sake of consistency and continuity for the listener. All audio is supported by specially commissioned original images and icon art which are time-delivered with the audio to provide a dynamic personal learning experience for the listener/viewer when using their iPod. We have had to develop our own digital production system to create our ‘very enhanced podcast’ product. This is something we are very proud of and it is hoped that this will help the business to develop into other education sectors.
What are the outcomes and how has it improved your business?
One of the things which has greatly increased the amount of activity on the site was the introduction of ‘video sampling’. Initially we ran with just audio, but soon realised that this wasn’t enough. The minute long videos, viewable on both the home page and the title pages give the user a great idea of not only how each GCSEPod sounds but also how the images and icon art work too. It has really brought the product alive.
We have recently started to communicate with our users via an e-newsletter, this has proved to be an invaluable way to let our users know the latest content we have on the site as well as other developments on the site. Currently we have in excess of 1000 users.
What are your plans for the future?
We are in a high growth phase at the moment. Each week we add between 10 and 15 titles to our library. In addition to the subjects currently live, Geography, History, RS and English Language we will shortly be adding Physics, Chemistry and Biology, closely followed by English Literature and Maths.
We are currently proposing to enter into a joint venture with a local education company to take GCSEPod into the schools sector. This product will be going through a pilot stage over the next 3 months with roll-out from Sept 2009.
