Chatbots are being used in retail and finance to
provide answers to common customer-service issues on e-commerce sites.
Instructors at the BI Norwegian Business School are working
on ways to use the same technology in the classroom.
Not satisfied with the
choices in learning management systems, advisor Erik Bøylestad Nilsen and his team
worked with the educational technology startup Edtech Foundry to pilot Differ, a solution
that uses chatbots to encourage students to interact with course materials.
Differ is able to respond to frequently asked questions and urges students to
participate in class discussions and forums.
“Students have a lot of the same questions over and over again,” Nilsen
said in an article for EdSurge. “They’re
looking for the answers to easy administrative questions and they have similar
types of questions regarding their subjects each year. Chatbots help get rid of
some of the noise. Students are able to get answers as quick as possible and
move on.”
Chatbots use data from the courses to learn the answers and spot student
behaviors. They can also be used to send direct messages to individual students
rather than posting information to the entire class. Students using the tool
appear to be more open to talking to chatbots than originally envisioned.
“They’re
afraid of being judged,” Nilsen said. “There’s no space where they can ask the
silly questions, where they can stay out of the faculty’s loop.”
