Post on 21-Jan-2016
Aggietalk.orgOmar Ghannoum&Peter Mack Grubb
Overview Website for matching language partners at Texas A&M
Cultural and linguistic exchange
Anyone with an @tamu.edu can use website
The idea originated because both of us are taking foreign language classes
Objectives Build the website
Attract a linguistically diverse user base
Have a high degree of user engagement
Find an organization that can continue to maintain the site
Strategies Website is a social network
Limited potential user base
Specific focus
Wordpress Content Management System used Easy to use for less technically inclined
Still highly flexible for our needs
Promotion done via organizations with large international base INTS, Arabic and Chinese clubs, fliers
Planning to hand off to International Studies student professional organization
Costs for hosting minimal (36$) so paid out of pocket
Challenges New Student Organization process is too bureaucratic
Trouble with A&M webhosting policies Required the use of Drupal
Did not allow for unfiltered student posting
Too many liability concerns
Establishing a relationship between the English Language Institute
Successes Around eight pairings were made, including myself
Users were very satisfied Had students come up to us in class and tell us what a good Idea it was
Influx of users after contacting International Studies Department
Connected with International students as well as local Texas A&M students
What we learned We are very resilient
We are effective leaders and communicators
When developing in a niche market, it is always more difficult to get started However, if it meets a need you will get a large user response
In order for the website to be successful, we had to always be on top of things
Assessment The good news: The final user count was 93
Split about 60/40 native vs. international students
The bad news: total number of Language Partners was 8 Caused by the timing people joined (international students after INTS)
Relatively late in the school year
Many pairings occurred where the user didn’t click “add as Language Partner”
High level of community involvement
Conclusion Project was all in all a success
Pairing Numbers were not as high as we would like, but community interest was most definitely there
Strong publicity push in the early Fall would probably lead to much better results
If this were a startup, we are ready for funding round 2