2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper discusses the integration of a chatbot software in a given course with the Canvas platform. Chatbot is a software application that can simulate human conversation and enhance teaching. In general teacher’s time and his presence in a class room or online are limited; however, this application software offers new ways to make a teacher’s presence and his knowledge available to all students. Chatbot can be used as a tool for business as well as in teaching and learning. It can be used to answer many student’s questions such as: exam date, office hours, searching content of a chapter, holidays, and many more.
We can use chatbot as a mentor by providing feedback, or as a tutor which can provide some personalized direct instructions and answers personalized questions. Chatbot also could be used as a coach by providing comments. Another application would be using it as a teammate, by providing alternate viewpoints resulting the team performance improvement. Another option would be using it as a beginner student, who asks new questions and that will make the instructor more prepared for the upcoming questions by students. Another option would be using it as a simulator that students can practice his or her projects presentations.
In this paper, the author provides data regarding the use of chatbot by students in a given course. Chatbot was implemented in several courses. In every course, an icon for a chatbot can be added to the website. By clicking on it a window will pop up, which provides several options. You can find information about class assignments, deadlines to finish assignments, lecture time or recordings and many more.
A chatbot program uses an algorithm such as artificial intelligence to simulate a human conversation with users by text messaging method. The key task of chatbot software is to provide conversational responses to student requests without teacher intervention. The advantage is that they can chat with multiple students simultaneously and provide information quickly. They can also improve student engagement.
Chatbot can be integrated with Canvas website, and other messaging applications such as Zoom. Chatbots can be powered by pre-programmed responses or by the use of artificial intelligence. Chatbot can respond differently to each student, depending on what they ask. This can increase the student’s sense of ownership of the learning process. In addition, the responses of the students provide data for the teacher to get to know the student better. This allows the teacher to adjust the chatbot’s design to improve the teaching experience.

Does chatbot replace the teacher?

Chatbot should not be considered as a replacement for the teacher. It is one more tool, or a new channel that can be used to design learning experiences in a way that extends the capacity and unique abilities of the teacher. The same way we use PowerPoint slides to share lectures with the students.

History of chatbots

In 1950 A. Turing, published a paper entitled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” In this article, he suggested that a computer program can think and talk like a human. Turing proposed an experiment called the Imitation Game, which is known as the Turing Test, to prove his proposal.
Professor, J. Weizenbaum, in 1966, developed a computer program called Eliza. It's considered to be the first chatbot in history. Eliza was a keyword-based.
K. Colby, a Stanford Artificial Intelligence expert, in 1971, suggested that computers could help for understanding brain function. He believed that the computer could help in treating patients with mental diseases. He developed a computer program called Parry that simulated a person with schizophrenia.
In 1988, R. Carpenter created Jabberwacky program. It was a program designed to simulate human conversation. Jabberwacky learned from past experiences and developed over time.
In 1992, Creative Labs, developed Dr. Sbaitso. It was an AI speech synthesis program that imitated a psychologist. R. Wallace developed Alice in 1995. Alice was inspired by Eliza and designed to have a natural conversation with users.
In 2001 SmarterChild was an intelligent chat built on AOL Messenger by ActiveBuddy. It's considered to be a predecessor to Apple's Siri.
In 2010, Apple launched Siri, since then, virtual assistants have been on the rise. Siri was the first personal assistant available worldwide. In 2012 Google released Google Now. Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon's Alexa were both released in 2014.
Facebook opened its Messenger platform for chatbots in 2016. This helped the development of automated communication platforms. In 2018, LiveChat released ChatBot, a framework that lets users build chatbots without coding.

What's the difference between chatbots and bots?

Although the terms chatbot and bot are used interchangeably, there's a significant difference between them.
A chatbot is a computer program designed to communicate with users. It analyzes users' questions to provide matching answers. Businesses use chatbots to support customers and help them to accomplish simple tasks without the help of a human agent.
A bot is an algorithm that interacts with web content. Bots help businesses and users to perform complex tasks faster.

How to create a chatbot?

Chatbots can be created from scratch or by using a chatbot platform.

Chatbot with a platform:

Using a platform is the easiest way to create a chatbot. Platforms let you to drag and drop predefined elements to design chatbots and launch them without coding. To facilitate the building process, some platforms provide templates. You can use them as they are or customize them. Platforms also come in handy if you want to test, at low cost, whether your business could benefit from using a chatbot. Some companies only use chatbot platforms from time to time, for instance, during the shopping season. They use a chatbot to help busy support teams or promote their new products. Another advantage of platforms is integrating them with third-party services.

Coding for chatbot:

Building your chatbot from scratch is time-consuming, but it gives you a control over your chatbot. You can customize it to serve the needs of your customers or students.
Why do educational communities need chatbots?
Technological progress has drastically changed the way people communicate. Class room interactions have been largely replaced by online interactions. This has forced universities to adapt to a new type of communication.
Many universities are deciding to introduce chatbot applications into their courses.

Summary:

Chatbots become an integral part of our life. They are already in our computers, phones, and smart home devices. Although chatbot technology is not perfect yet, it helps teaching or business and can quickly handle many repetitive tasks. That is probably the essence of chatbots. As a tool in education, their aim is not to replace a teacher but to enhance teaching. You may call it Teaching Assistants. In this paper author shares his experiences in using chatbot in different courses. Examples regarding the use of chatbot as a coach, mentor, tools, and tutor will be presented.