A Siri for Higher Ed Aims to Boost Student Engagement - Marguerite McNeal, EdSurge

When third-year students in strategy classes at BI Norwegian Business School have a question about their assignments next semester, odds are a robot will provide their answer. A chatbot—a computer program designed to simulate an intelligent conversation—will respond to routine student inquiries and prompt students to complete assignments, mimicking some of the tasks of a teaching assistant. Although chatbots are common in other industries like retail and finance, they’ve only recently made their way into higher-education. The idea is that if a chatbot on an e-commerce site can help with common customer-service scenarios, why not bring a chatbot to a course Web site to answer frequently asked questions from students? https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-12-07-a-siri-for-higher-ed-aims-to-boost-student-engagement