Examify is a new education focused online service that intends to use algorithms and crowd sourcing to generate intelligence around various examinations, allowing students to filter out important topics and questions. The site covers CBSE, IGCSE, IB and ICSE Board examinations, and IIT-JEE and BITSAT examinations at the time of writing this post, and is in closed beta.
The venture is founded by Angad Nadkarni and Samudra Neelam Bhuyan, and Vishal Gondal has invested in the company. He is also an advisor and mentor to the start-up.
The site allows users to browse through trending questions, after selecting the examination they’re studying for. It also offers an Advanced search feature that enables users to search questions across various subjects, by type, difficulty and marks. Users can browse through individual papers, as well.
Use of data: Speaking with MediaNama, Bhuyan informed that initially, Examify is collecting old examination test papers, processing the data related to questions through various algorithms to determine how likely it is for a question to appear in an exam, based on parameters like its weight-age, concept, occurrences, popularity among users and other factors. It offers a popularity meter that takes into account all these factors and gives a percentage point rating to each question. The site also allows users to rate questions on difficulty levels.
Users can also answer questions, which can then be rated by other users (similar to the rating system in Quora) to earn reputation points. Users can also leave comments on questions and on answers of other users. There’s also a timer that allows users to time their answers. The timer also informs about the ‘best attempt’ time. Users can invite their Facebook friends and other peers to join the site, and review each other’s answers. Examify also plans to introduce gamification by rewarding users with points for answers and reviews, which can be redeemed for premium features or for other freebies, in addition to gaining various reputation levels. Users can also mark questions as favourites for revision, at a later time.
The site intends to keep the major features free, and plans to add premium features such as allowing users to get their answers verified by experts, at a later point in time. It does not intend to rely on advertisements for monetization.
Examify plans to offer an open beta in January and add premium features in the next 5-6 months. On being asked if the site is open to partnerships with bigger players like Shiksha, Minglebox and others, Bhuyan responded that they’re open to it but are not in talks with anyone, at the moment.
Our Take: We feel that the concept of using algorithms for predicting questions is interesting, but a lot will also depend on how end-users interact with the site and how Examify moderates content to ensure the credibility of answers. Of course, self regulating mechanisms like ratings and reputation points will help it in one way to achieve that. The site’s user interface is also free of clutter, and allows users to focus on content without getting distracted.
