I've been thinking about the possibility of integrating a little more closely with University-level curricula. In the same way that many StackOverflow users are learning to code for the first time, this site could market itself as a resource for biology students.
This site could do more to encourage those doing biology-based courses, not just to ask questions, but also to try answering at their own level. I'm a student doing a biology-based degree, yet most, if not all of the questions we have are too advanced for me to answer. For that reason, we miss out on lots of visitors who want answers to simpler questions.
It is my view that we should attempt to make the most of potential visitors who have these simpler questions, as while it may be seen as clogging up the system, having Q&A of a university/college-level study-group style would lead to a brilliant resource for people at every level, just like StackOverflow is for coders.
The idea I have may or may not be possible, but I'm quite interested in the idea of highlighting (probably using tags) when a question relates to a specific curriculum.
The idea being, that if I have a question relating to my BIOL1008 course, which is unique to the University of Southampton, then my course mates would be well-placed to answer it, though not exclusively. So, in addition to the normal tags, I could add a hyper-specific course tag, of something like uk-soton-biol1008 (so, in this example, it's just country-institution-course). This doesn't have to show, or be used anywhere else, but other students (and potentially academics) on the course can quickly and easily see all the questions that have been marked as relating to the course content, and potentially embed a list on a VLE like Blackboard.
I appreciate this doesn't exactly follow exactly what would usually go on on a site like this, but, whether you like it or not, students will arrive here with questions that are related to things they have studied. I guess the question is whether this should be used as a way to encourage a new wealth of questions and answers, albeit, of a slightly lower level of expertise than other questions.
Personally, I like the concept, so thought I would share it, but I'm well aware that it is out of step with the direction the site has taken thus far, so I'm prepared for lots of down votes within minutes!