Chat Moderators is working with the DCSF and the Central Office of Information (COI) on a new social networking initiative aimed at improving awareness and increasing the number of students studying Science and Maths at post 16. The initiative is part of a wider Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) campaign, which features Cinema, TV, Radio and Online advertising,
Chat Moderators is moderating pages on the social networking site Bebo, which the DCSF has selected as a platform to reach its key audience. www.scienceandmaths.net has a range of profiles from ‘games developer’ to ‘cosmetic specialist’ which allow teenagers to find out about exciting and interesting career opportunities that arise from STEM subjects and what skills and qualifications are required to pursue them.
Chat Moderators’ role on the campaign is to moderate friends and comments on the Bebo profile pages and respond to common questions from users, based on a standard set of information from each profile. Complex questions from students to the profiles are sent to the profiles directly for individual answers via DCSF. Chat Moderators then respond to the student with the profile’s response.
A DCSF spokesperson comments, “We know that a large proportion of 11-16 years old use popular social networking sites to communicate so we identified this as an important channel. Bebo has allowed us to tap into an already existing network to offer a deeper level of interaction and communicate our message to an engaged audience. The level of response we have had from student’s interested in STEM subjects and these roles has been very encouraging.
“DCSF have strict parameters about which friends and comments would and wouldn’t get approval, which was imperative considering the age of our audience. We take our responsibility extremely seriously and to get the best out of the campaign, we need to ensure that any negative behaviour is dealt with immediately.”
The campaign launched in March 2008 and it has since received 110,000 visits. The DCSF is currently developing the strategy for the campaign for 2009/10 which is likely to continue digital communications.
To view the campaign please visit www.scienceandmaths.net
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