Overview of SABC School Advisor, a South African school-finding and comparing tool designed at the 2013 Editors' Lab Hackathon in Cape Town.

1. Izak Minnaar, Michael Salzwedel,Tegan Bedser,
David Hislop (www.korwe.com)
Digital News
@sabcnewsonline

2.  Context
 Concept
 Functionality
 Prototype
 Data sources
 Access
 Implementation
 Next phases

3.  The SABC is strong on providing education
content and services – it is part of the public
service mandate
 Education on 3 TV and 18 radio stations; the web
 SABC is a major source of matric results
 In 2012 about 60% of matrics who passed used the
SABC NewsBreak matric results service
 Daily education coverage on SABC News

4.  As a natural extension of these services, the
SABC now provides the public with a tool to
check out schools in their area:
 Academic performance and track record
 Teacher/student ratios
 Educational and other facilities
 Special streams and subjects
 Sport facilities and extramural activities

5.  Use a map and/or filters to find a school:
 Welcome to SABC SchoolAdvisor, where you can
find out more about schools in your area. Double-
click anywhere on the map to zoom in, or use the
selection tools. Click any school marker on the map
to find out more about that school.
 Map pop-up with basic information and a link
to a full school report card

10.  Compare my school with others
 Rate my school
 Sign in with FB/Twitter (building a community)
and rate tuition, facilities, management, etc
 Additional info – list and click through to
 Schedules for SABC educational programmes on
radio and TV
 Educational videos and podcasts
 Education related news stories

11.  Official information provided by the
Department of Basic Education:
 Schools master list (xls, already available)
 Matric results: performance by subject (scraped
from pdf)
 Schools infrastructure list (pdf, to be scraped and
incorporated/hunt for datasets)

12.  Embedded in full and widget sizes on SABC
websites and social media profiles:
 SABC home page, education, news
 Education programme sites
 TV and radio station sites
 Fixed links on SABC website header/footer
 Promotion on 4 TV channels, 18 radio
stations

13.  Remaining work to be done on this version
 Finishing functionality
 Adding data from pdfs
 Completing design and artwork
 Cleaning up code
 Creating widgets and embed functionality
 Deployment on SABC websites
 Best case implementation scenario for
version one: 4 – 6 weeks

14.  Mobile version
 More & updated info to ensure return visits:
 Incorporate datasets from 3rd
parties - eg Equal
Education, research institutes:
▪ Top schools for maths, science, etc
▪ Schools with problems: sanitation, textbooks
 User generated content, curated and
moderated