(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016)
Goel, Ashok K.; Polepeddi, Lalith
MOOCs are rapidly proliferating. However, for many MOOCs, the effectiveness of learning is
questionable and student retention is low. One recommendation for improving the learning and
the retention is to enhance the interaction between the teacher and the students. However, the
number of teachers required to provide learning assistance to all students enrolled in all
MOOCs is prohibitively high. One strategy for improving interactivity in MOOCs is to use virtual
teaching assistants to augment and amplify interaction with human teachers. We describe the
use of a virtual teaching assistant called Jill Watson (JW) for the Georgia Tech OMSCS 7637
class on Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence. JW has been operating on the online
discussion forums of different offerings of the KBAI class since Spring 2016. By now some 750
students have interacted with different versions of JW. In the latest, Spring 2017 offering of the
KBAI class, JW autonomously responded to student introductions, posted weekly
announcements, and answered routine, frequently asked questions. In this article, we describe
the motivations, background, and evolution of the virtual question-answering teaching assistant.