The Student Source is the AI-powered student insights analytic platform, driven by genuine international student voices and conversations.
The platform currently works by monitoring student sentiment across platforms and organising them into main themes: government, support services, education outcomes, quality of education, community and social integration, living and logistics and competitor destinations.
The platform’s technology taps into the spaces of social media where students gather to discuss the issues that matter to them, helping to pinpoint challenges, opportunities, and areas where policies and services can improve – all backed by data. It then delivers tailored reports and interactive dashboards, providing clients with deeper insights.
Created during the pandemic, and founded by the Lygon Group, it was announced in March 2024 that the insights platform had been acquired by employment marketplace platform Voyage, with key staff from the Lygon Group joining the edtech disruptor.
The PIE caught up with pioneer of the platform, Varsha Devi Balakrishnan, head of student insights and strategy at Voyage, to discuss the platform’s inception, development and how universities and organisations can use it to transform how they connect with international students.
As a previous international student, originally from Singapore, Balakrishnan was among a group of highly engaged students who contributed to federal advisory boards while studying in Australia. When the pandemic struck, Balakrishnan was called upon to provide insights into the experiences of Australia’s 650,000 international students, examining the impact of Covid-19 and its mobility restrictions.
“We didn’t really have a lead indicator to tell us what is at the front of minds of students,” Balakrishnan recalled. “That was really where the Social Source came about conceptually.”
As government bodies explored the best ways to reopen mobility, they trialled the platform, with organisations such as Austrade and Study Australia keen to explore how it could be scaled up to promote Australia as a top study destination.
“The Social Source took on a life of its own where everyone was interested,” said Balakrishnan.
“The subset of the conversations that we monitor as well has just grown exponentially,” explained Balakrishnan. “We have over 100,000 search terms that we set up and every week, we’re adding to that. Just as the sector talks, students talk.”
Just as the sector talks, students talk
Varsha Devi Balakrishnan, The Social Source
Through the AI-powered monitoring, and supported by the sector expertise that Voyage brings, the value for clients lies in discovering how such sentiments are impacting enrolments, recruitment and retention.
It’s a model that is applicable to any study destination, and as non-traditional destinations emerge, the team behind the platform say there is a huge untapped benefit of gauging what prospective students are thinking about these markets.
“The Social Source puts the student voice at the forefront. It allows them to be lead indicators and that’s revolutionising how we respond to students and how we respond to students and how we interact with them,” said Balakrishnan.
On a daily basis, users can access this data, allowing them to “pivot as students are pivoting”, she added.
Since joining Voyage in 2024, the tool has gone from solely producing static reports to being reimagined into a data dashboard, complemented by monthly reports and actionable insights for the sector it seeks to serve.
Organisations and institutions can customise their use of the platform, selecting the sentiments, markets, and topics most relevant to their goals. This could include benchmarking their brand performance against competitors, with data updated every 24 hours.
Elsewhere, a newer feature allows users to interact with and poll international students, offering real-time insights into offshore and onshore student sentiment through rapid response pulse checks.
In recent months, the platform has offered institutions and organisations valuable insights into major policy shifts – from Donald Trump’s inauguration to Australia’s latest visa-processing directive MD111 – helping them stay connected to international student perspectives and plan more effectively for the future.
