Helping further education colleges unlock the potential of artificial intelligence
Chatbot pilot gives colleges the opportunity to explore how they can use artificial intelligence (AI) to address key sector challenges around staff workload and learner satisfaction.
Our work in artificial intelligence (AI) has provided four further education (FE) colleges with a chatbot based on Ada, a pioneering digital assistant developed by Bolton College, which has been in use there since 2017. A core question set based on 1,600 of Ada’s existing questions was shared with the pilot participants and, supported by Jisc, each college is adapting the queries and answers to suit their own needs.
The aim of the project is to test whether chatbots really can free up staff to concentrate on face-to-face support for learners and how they might best be implemented as part of an overall digital transformation strategy. The results will be shared for the benefit of our member community.
While the pilot project is still ongoing, we would like to share a few interim insights into the progress so far.
Sandwell College looks to expand chatbot use to kiosks
The largest provider of 16-19 study programmes in the West Midlands, Sandwell College identified a very real need to take pressure off its busy professional services departments. At certain times of the academic year, admissions, welfare and IT staff have to deal with queues of learners asking often generic questions about college life and campus services.
“An AI-based virtual digital assistant that could act as a self-service source of accurate information seemed the ideal way to solve the problem,” said Chris Baldwin, learning technologist at Sandwell College. “Working with Jisc, the IT team here developed our own version, which is now in use.
"Not only does it enable all our learners to find appropriate information independently at any time, but it also takes the pressure off staff in support roles by eliminating the need to answer repetitive questions.”
Self-service information kiosks
Sandwell is looking to expand the pilot project and the IT team is already developing a kiosk version of the chatbot to place in pinch-point locations such as reception and learning centres.
“Jisc has been invaluable in developing and setting up this chatbot,” says Baldwin.
“Receiving a weekly digest of responses enables us to refine and add to our own question set. And Jisc developers are also working on a reset button to clear previous searches for our kiosk machine project.”
Ayrshire College’s chatbot addresses the complex issue of student funding in Scotland
With more than 14,000 learners spread between three campuses, Ayrshire College struggles to cope with the influx of enquires at certain times of year. For example, the student funding team is sometimes under pressure to respond to hundreds of telephone calls, emails and walk-in enquiries each day, and the staff are so busy dealing with these that it reduces their capacity to process funding applications.
“I want to explore whether chatbots can transform how we interact with our students by providing them with an additional platform to engage with us and, ultimately, provide an improved student experience.”
“I want to explore whether chatbots can transform how we interact with our students by providing them with an additional platform to engage with us and, ultimately, provide an improved student experience,” says Shelagh Mclachlan, head of marketing and front-of-house at Ayrshire College.
Ask Flora
The chatbot, named after Flora MacDonald, enables the college to provide answers 24/7, 365 days a year.
Visitors to the website can access important information at a time to suit them, and learners can access information on the college app or in the virtual learning environment at any time.
“For example, some students could not get access to their student accounts or their app,” says Mclachlan, “But they were able to ‘Ask Flora’ and she directed them to a password hotline to get timely support.”
Understanding what students want to know right now
Flora has answers to hundreds of questions, and the team receives regular feedback on questions that have been asked and the answers that were delivered.
“This helps us understand the kinds of questions students want to know right now," Mclachlan explains. "We can then tailor messages on other platforms to improve communication. It gives us greater insight into the terminology students use. For example, we might refer to ‘funding’ whereas they might say ‘money.’ We can then add questions using the word ‘money’ - which will improve the ability of the chatbot to deliver the correct answer.”
Adding questions is easy, she says, if time-consuming. The challenge will be to keep the chatbot not just up to date, but to predict what students will want to know before they ask.
Learning and developing confidence with AI
“The chatbot pilot has really opened our eyes to the possibilities of using a virtual campus assistant,” says Mclachlan. “I think it’s going to be baby steps as we learn and develop our confidence with this technology – but I can see the potential to develop this for other areas in the college as people start to see the benefits for their students and staff.”
"I can see the potential to develop this for other areas in the college as people start to see the benefits for their students and staff.”
Jisc, she adds, has provided support at each step of the way through the project.
“Both Jisc and Ayrshire college have learned together and helped each other with the process. I think it’s been a really valuable pilot which will hopefully lead to a national rollout and benefit other educational institutions.”
About the author
I co-lead our artificial intelligence activity. Our focus is on supporting our members to responsibly adopt AI. We provide a wide range of thought leadership, practical advice, guidance, and training alongside piloting relevant AI products.