ISEDJ

Abstract: Many universities have, or are facing, the task of providing high quality essential customer services with fewer financial and human resources. The growing diversity of students, their needs and proficiencies, along with the increasing variety of university program offerings, makes providing customized, on-demand, automated solutions crucial to delivering high quality customer service. In this paper, the authors describe the development of an Artificial Intelligence-backed chatbot to aid in answering student advisement questions. The main objective of the chatbot is to provide 24/7 supplemental program specific advising assistance to graduate computer science majors to lessen the advising load of university faculty. In this paper, the authors describe the development of a chatbot prototype using IBM Watson Assistant running on a specially-designed website and Slack platform to address frequently asked questions of computer science graduate students. Results of a pilot study conducted on 10 graduate students indicate that the prototype is a positive step forward in making student advising accessible, usable, and scalable to a broader audience.

Download this article: ISEDJ - V21 N3 Page 12.pdf

Recommended Citation: Mitra, R., Schwieger, D., Lowe, R., (2023). Managing Graduate Student Advisement Questions during a Season of Explosive Growth: Development and Testing of an Advising Chatbot. Information Systems Education Journal21(3) pp 12-23. http://ISEDJ.org/2023-3/ ISSN : ISSN: 1545-679X. A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of EDSIGCON 2022