Subsidy
Saxion participated in the three-day Hackaton 'AI in Education' at the University of Twente last year. The Saxion team won the Hackaton with the idea for sAxi, an empathetic AI study coach to whom students can ask a variety of questions 24/7. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has now awarded funding for the two winning pilots. This means that sAxI will be developed further, resulting in a Saxion chatbot for Saxion students.
Answering questions can be better than now
Of course, there are already all kinds of ways for students at Saxion to ask their questions, Bosshardt stressed. “For example, there is a personal flesh-and-blood study coach for every student. In addition, Saxion's Student Support Centre offers various services - from deans and psychologists to training language coaches. And finally, there is the search engine on 'My Saxion' (intranet).” But Saxion still thinks that answering students' questions could be even better
Flesh-and-blood study coaches not available 24/7
Bosshardt: “The study coaches are not available 24/7 and, of course, they do not always know the answer to every question immediately. Moreover, students sometimes seem to experience a barrier to going to the Student Support Center for help with their questions. It is sometimes sensitive. Through My Saxion it is difficult to receive the right information, because as a student how do you know which documentation is relevant and correct for your question.”
The chatbot's output must meet 6 Cs
Bosshardt's dream is “an accessible and personal study coach for all Saxion students that accesses and gives access to all information validated by Saxion: information determined by the CvB or handouts for our students.” The chatbot must provide output (answers) to students that meets the 6 C model devised by Saxion. Those six Cs stand for: Coherent, Correct, Complete, Complementary to the work of the real-life study coach, Citing sources and Compliant to laws and regulations. A major goal of sAxI is to prevent study delay and dropout by providing “just in time” information and advice within the context of Saxion. “This also benefits the well-being of our students,” Bosshardt indicated.
Fed with validated basic information from Saxion
How does sAxI work? sAxI is a chatbot that has been given the role of “empathetic study coach” and is fed on the back end with validated basic information from Saxion on a number of topics, such as student regulations (the OER) and student welfare, for example. sAxI is based on Dante as a concept at the outset, but Saxion is likely to build its own tool for the pilot, Bosshardt explained.
Attention to legal and ethical aspects
Saxion has now received funding to further develop the design idea of sAxI. In further developing and building the chatbot, a lot of attention will be paid to legal and ethical aspects. Consider privacy legislation, for example: “a smart interaction between humans and technology, also requires a good balance between ethics and technology,” Bosshardt said.
No replacement
Incidentally, flesh-and-blood personal study coaches will also remain available to students. “They will soon have more time for more complex questions and more time for contact with our students. sAxI is complementary, and certainly not a replacement.”
Personalized feedback
The second pilot of the University of Twente and University of Bremen is developing an AI tool for automatic feedback on instructional videos. With this, teachers and teachers-in-training receive immediate and personalized feedback. This improves learning quality and reduces workload . Both pilot projects focus on improving teaching quality with AI.
