Technology is helping colleges and universities connect with students and staff in some very personal ways. Because COVID-19 has severely curtailed face-to-face interactions on campuses across the country, administrators have had to develop and implement effective ways to communicate with others in the school community in ways that not only meet the needs of students but can expand and enhance relationships.
The problem for universities and colleges is that they need to convey their particular vibe to give prospective students a feel for their institution and to connect current students with their school in meaningful ways. With in-person interactions, large school-sponsored gatherings and one-on-one meetings with professors no longer an option under COVID-19 restrictions, colleges and universities are turning to artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbots to get their messaging across, connect with and expand relationships with students, foster a sense of community and nurture institutional loyalty.
What are Chatbots?
A chatbot is AI software that can simulate a conversation with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps or over the telephone. When a human is interacting with a chatbot, it analyzes the user request and extracts data, then returns a response, which can be in the form of predefined text, text selected from a knowledge base with different answers, contextualized information from data provided by a user, a clarifying question or data stored in enterprise systems, for instance. In business applications, chatbots can be used to improve customer experience and provide smooth interactions, make it easier for customers to engage with the company and provide lower-cost customer service than would be possible with live agents.
Intelligent chatbots can be trained to perform varying tasks, using both AI and natural language processing (NLP) technologies so they can both understand queries and respond in a natural, conversational way. Higher education institutions can use chatbots in a number of ways.
Chatbots can give students fast and accurate answers to their questions, which could include queries about financial aid, available courses in their major or campus bookstore hours, for example. They can provide a quick and seamless way to connect students with advisors. Chatbots can also save staff time by cutting down on the number of times they have to answer the same questions. Overall, chatbots are valuable not only because they can provide and spread information fast and easily, but they can provide personalized experiences to better meet the needs of students and staff.
Across the country, colleges and universities are using chatbots to help meet varying goals and objectives. Some of these include:
Georgia State University for instance, used chatbots to address summer melt – the group of students who were accepted but did not enroll. The university identified the common enrollment obstacles, and developed an approach to help students with a combination of a new student portal to help students progress through the steps to enrollment and an AI-enhanced chatbot, Pounce, which responded to thousands of questions from incoming students via text messages on their smart devices.
Loyola University of Chicago’s digital assistant/chatbot, LUie, was piloted in the fall of 2019 to provide students with questions that otherwise require a phone call or research. In the Spring of 2020, LUie launched to 16,000 users. After COVID hit, LUie took in nearly 100 new questions concerning institutional policy and topics such as pandemic symptoms, campus life and building access, according to the chatbot vendor, IntraSee. LUie also helps advisors by taking a 15-minute advising process and automating it down to less than 30 seconds by instantly looking up a student’s GPA and consulting
different pages in the student system. Loyola also developed a chatbot with the voice of its greyhound mascot, Iggy, to foster a sense of community and school identity. Committed students and parents can hear from Iggy on issues they might have learned about during a campus visit, such as course registration and the orientation process.
For its part, Arizona State uses its campus chatbot, Sunny, which was initially used to guide first- and second-year students, to keep all students updated on COVID-19. Right after the pandemic hit, last March, ASU used Sunny to text all 66,800 students on campus with a link to COVID-19 updates, offering to answer any questions. About 5,900 students responded with queries about classes and remote access to university services.