Starting Date: 7 June 2021
Prerequisites:
Will results be assigned to University:
It is important that student queries are replied to quickly and accurately. Many of the requests for information are fully explained in resources such as the student handbook. These include questions such as where students request extensions on coursework or how shuold they inform College if they are absent from a lecture. Frequently these questions are emailed to a variety of different addressess, such as the administative office or a lecturer and hence can get a variation of time of response. A chatbot could act as a central location for students to get initial information and if they cannot get the right information they can then be directed to an appropriate person to speak to.
The infrastructure to build Chatbots has improved substantially with, for example, Microsoft Azure (uising for example https://www.qnamaker.ai/). In this project the student will determine what elements would be necessary to implement an effective chatbot for the department. This would involve
.) determining the data set necessary for the chatbot
.) what code would need to be developed
.) how to effectively determine if the chatbot cannot provide a cogent answer and hence decide on what actions to take next (i.e. who the student should contact next).