Enrolment in GEOG2030, my undergraduate global development course, is running behind last year. I have nine days, three platforms and no other lever. The target is set here before anything goes out, and the count is posted every day until registration closes.
The first two experiments apply creator-economy tools to research. This one applies them to teaching, which is the part of the job with an actual audience problem.
Nothing happens if nobody watches me stream a paper. But if we don’t get enough students taking our classes, the department suffers.
So I will try to boost enrolment through content. A series of posts on YouTube, Instagram and Xiaohongshu, aimed at convincing students there are worse ways to spend their time.
The course is GEOG2030. It opened at 165, capacity is 354, and registration closes at 4pm on 15 September. The target is 200.
Logged once a day at 17:00 Hong Kong time. The bar runs the full width of the room, so the gap between the target and the far end is the seats that were never the point.
165 enrolled, 200 wanted, 354 seats. Registered here before a single post goes out, because a target set afterwards is not a target.
Timetable clashes, competing courses in the same requirement bucket, cohort size, the catalogue blurb. Some of the gap may have nothing to do with me, and it is worth knowing which part before trying to fix it.
YouTube, Instagram and Xiaohongshu. Every post is linked in the log above as it goes out, so the record is complete whether or not it works.
Whatever the number is, it is the number. Final count posted the same afternoon.
Nine days is not an experiment with a control group, and one course is not a sample. The useful part is the account of what it took and where it failed.
The course is an undergraduate global development class at the University of Hong Kong. Nothing here identifies a student, and no enrolled student is asked to do anything. The daily count is the departmental registration figure and nothing else.