1. OPEN SHIKSHA
Adaptive Learning and Educational
Analytics for School Students in India
Overview. May 2016.
Social Seva Initiatives

2. www.openshiksha.org
© Social Seva Initiatives www.openshiksha.org
OPEN SHIKSHA
OpenShiksha is a free online educational platform designed to improve concept
retention and learning outcomes for students in India. Our platform provides
students, teachers, parents and administrators with an interface to assign,
complete, evaluate and analyse student homework.
The platform uses advanced analytics and formulaic question templates to
personalise student assignments and move away from a ‘one size fits all’
approach to education. Our content is specially designed to suit the Indian
curriculum and is based on the CBSE board structure. We currently support
classes 8th
- 10th
for Maths and Science and also include concept refreshers for
classes 1st
– 10th
to ensure that students understand the necessary concepts to
solve higher difficulty problems.
Our content includes educational games, interactive widgets and traditional
input options like numerical answers and MCQs. Our question banks are
created based on the CAC (Conceptual, Application and Critical Thinking)
methodology and ensure that each concept is thoroughly tested. Students
receive detailed solutions and hints for every problem, allowing them to learn
from their mistakes. All the content is available in English and Hindi and we are
in the process of developing content in regional Indian languages.
Our platform disseminates content using two models, both of which are
provided free of cost –
The Open Model where students can create accounts directly from the website
and access all our content. Students progress through the various assignments
at their own pace and our algorithms provide personalised feedback on their
performance and suggestions for which concepts need more focus.
The Partnership Model where we work collaboratively with schools, educational
non-profits and government initiatives. We provide administrator accounts
which can be used to create virtual classrooms and add student, teacher and
parent accounts. Our platform enables these schools to improve student
performance, analyse different teaching methods and make data driven
decisions.

3. www.openshiksha.org
© Social Seva Initiatives www.openshiksha.org
OPEN SHIKSHA
Open Model
Students from across the country can independently visit the website and
create accounts. They can choose their class and language and access our portal
to practice personalised questions, play educational games and solve interactive
problems. The platform’s interface is clean and simple and has been designed
to be intuitive. It can be accessed through any internet connected device
(computer, tablet or smartphone). We also offer an Android App that students
can download to work offline.
The practice assignments are automatically corrected and the students receive
detailed solutions to every problem. Our questions are generated formulaically
using algorithmic constraints, which means that there are an unlimited number
of practice questions for every subject topic. Students can access the analytics
page which dynamically generates an overview of their performance and
provides them with focused insights into which concepts need further
attention. Our platform statistically analyses their answers and provides
students with a summary of the information relevant to improving their
understanding of the material.
The goal of the open model is to provide students with free and open access to
a smart analytics engine and learning platform that they can use to understand
and practice core concepts. Personalised questions, custom analytics and
formulaic templates ensure that every student is viewed as a unique individual.
Gamified content, interactive questions and a minimalist interface make the
subject content engaging and enjoyable.

4. www.openshiksha.org
© Social Seva Initiatives www.openshiksha.org
OPEN SHIKSHA
Partnership Model
OpenShiksha provides a free, feature rich implementation of the platform to
educational organisations, foundations and schools. The beneficiaries include
private schools and traditionally underserved government and municipal
schools. This model is targeted towards schools and organisations looking to
use affordable mobile, tablet and computing technology to improve learning
outcomes for their students. In order to provide students in underserved
communities with access to the internet, we explore a number of options -
including collaborating with community learning centres, non-profit technology
initiatives, private CSR drives and government ICT schemes.
We provide Administrator Accounts to our partner organisations / schools
which are used to create virtual classrooms consisting of Teacher Accounts,
Student Accounts and Parent Accounts. Teachers can then log in and assign
questions to their classroom from our question banks. Our questions are
generated formulaically using algorithmic constraints, which means that there
are close to an infinite number of practice questions for every subject topic.
Students can log in from tablets, phones or computers and complete their
assignments. In many cases, our partner organisations set-up community
learning centres where the students can use subsidized tablets to access the
interface. Each student receives unique questions and cannot copy or plagiarise
answers. They also received detailed, step-by-step solutions once the
assignments are corrected.
After the assignments are automatically corrected by our system, all the users
(student, teachers, parents and administrators) receive in-depth analytics on
student, teacher and class performance along with actionable suggestions to
improve concept retention. The interface tracks a number of important
academic metrics and makes them easy to visualise and compare. Our partner
organisations use the data to track class performance, validate teaching
methods and identify systemic problems within their student and school
communities.
The goal of the partnership model is to provide organisations working on the
ground with accessible tools to improve student, teacher and school
performance by making data driven decisions.

5. www.openshiksha.org
© Social Seva Initiatives www.openshiksha.org
OPEN SHIKSHA
Primary Features
• Advanced analytics identify student strengths and weaknesses and
provide detailed insights into concepts that need further attention.
• Personalised feedback, based on past performance, targets specific
learning outcomes.
• Formulaic templates generate an unlimited number of questions,
preventing student copying and ensuring unlimited practice.
• Automated correction eradicates repetitive, time consuming correction
for teachers.
• Statistical tools analyse student, teacher and school performance and
identify systemic issues and areas of improvement.
• Administrator accounts allow educational organisations to track and
analyse multiple metrics, allowing data-driven management decisions.
• Auto-generated report cards, data visualisations and a dedicated parent
interface facilitate parent-school engagement.
• Seamless integration with mobile and tablet platforms allow grassroots
organisations to leverage low-cost technology to provide students with a
high value learning platform.
• Our Android Application allows students to work offline.
• Refresher material for Standards 1st
– 10th
ensure that basic concepts are
clear and students have the required background to thrive in higher
classes.
• Hindi and English language support

6. www.openshiksha.org
© Social Seva Initiatives www.openshiksha.org
OPEN SHIKSHA
Frequently Asked Questions
Q What do you mean by Adaptive Learning and Analytics?
Our platform personalises the educational experience for every student based
on their past performance. For instance, if a student makes a mistake every
time a certain concept (say algebraic substitution) is required, our algorithms
will flag the concept as a problem area and will provide the student with
feedback. Our engine will analyse multiple datasets to provide an educated
competency score for each concept. We call these Concept Scores and they
help diagnose areas that require more focus.
Q What do you mean by Formulaic Questions and Unlimited Practice?
Instead of creating question banks, we create question templates. Consider this
question – Ram has 10 balls and Rajat has 20, how many do they have
together? In the above example ‘Ram’, ‘Rajat’, ‘10’, ‘20’ and ‘balls’ are all
variables within certain constraints. While one student might get 10 and 20,
another might get 13 and 15. This allows for a huge number of potential
questions and allows every student to practice unique questions multiple times.
Q How will underserved students have access to the internet?
We recognise that many underserved communities do not have easy access to
the internet. However, there is a lot of research indicating the important role
that education technology could play in these communities. Our model works
collaboratively with grassroots organisations to provide students with internet
access through the following paths:
1) Community computer labs consisting of low-cost tablets and computing
devices that are made available to students and incorporated within /
following schools hours.
2) Personal, subsidized tablets that are distributed to the students as part of
government schemes or private CSR. Our platform can be natively
incorporated within the android interface.
3) Parent / Family smartphones. We have found significant penetration of
low-cost android devices amongst parents and adults in traditionally
underserved communities. By engaging with the parents, educational
organisations can ensure that students have access to OpenShiksha
resources.

7. www.openshiksha.org
© Social Seva Initiatives www.openshiksha.org
OPEN SHIKSHA
Q What analytics do the teachers, parents and administrators receive?
The platform provides administrators with tools and visualisations to perform
evaluations on student, teacher and class performance and track a number of
different metrics. This includes grade distributions, averages, standard
deviations and other statistically relevant data. Teachers can analyse class
performance and track problem areas using intuitive visualisations. Students
and Parents can access their analytics through custom performance reports that
provide an overview of past performance and identify areas for improvement.
Q Will children be get distracted when they’re using the platform?
The interface is an immersive environment that is designed specifically to keep
the student’s attention. In the information age, it is important that children
begin to view computers and tablets as productive tools. Our platform
introduces students to the power and convenience of using technology
productively.
Q Will this reduce student-teacher interaction?
On the contrary, the guiding principle behind OpenShiksha is to automate the
repetitive tasks that teachers perform (like notebook correction) and instead
provide them with high quality, actionable information that they can use to
make data-driven decisions about how to best teach their students.
Q What about checking steps and methods for solutions?
Many of our questions have multi-part solutions that require the student to go
through the problem step by step in order to solve it successfully. Our questions
are specifically designed to test whether the student actually understands the
concept. Additionally, the formulaic nature of the questions ensures that
students cannot simply copy an answer since they each receive unique
questions. Lastly, we encourage students to write down the steps in a notebook
and only input the final answer into the online interface. This way, teachers can
ask to see notebooks when necessary to crosscheck the online entries.
Q If your content is based on the CBSE structure, what about state board syllabi?
While our broad structure is based on the CBSE board, we try to ensure that we
target all the relevant maths and science concepts touched on by the various
major educational boards. The modular assignments allow teachers to assign

8. www.openshiksha.org
© Social Seva Initiatives www.openshiksha.org
OPEN SHIKSHA
questions based on the relevant concepts being taught in class. Additionally,
teachers can choose to assign questions from any standard level (for instance a
teacher could assign an 8th
Standard class something from our 7th
Standard
collection) which provides a lot of flexibility.
Contact
contact@socialseva.org
+91 9922498624
+91 7057216343