With course registration quickly approaching, many students are meeting with their academic advisors and reviewing their degree audits to see what requirements they still have to fulfill.
But advising appointments are typically brief, and advisors can’t always answer all of the questions students have.
To help address this issue, the Center for Digital Innovation in Learning (CDIL) has begun developing a fresh solution: an AI chatbot.
The chatbot seeks to answer students’ questions about course registration and help them see what classes they still need to take to complete their degrees.
The goal of the program is to supplement students’ academic advisors, not completely replace them, Akua Sarr, vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs, emphasized at the UGBC Senate meeting Tuesday night.
“If we did something with AI, that would be the transaction piece—checking the boxes—and we hope that will save more time for you to actually have a conversation with a faculty member about more mentoring,” Sarr said.
Sarr was joined at the meeting by John FitzGibbon, associate director for digital learning innovation, and Tim Lindgren, assistant director for design innovation, to gather input from student senators and suggestions as they design the chatbot.
Because many BC students pursue double majors and minors, several student senators proposed that it would be helpful if the chatbot could identify courses eligible for cross-counting to meet requirements across multiple programs.
“I just want to make sure that it is really helpful in finding out what requirements you need to satisfy because you have university requirements and you have major requirements, sometimes you want to fit a minor in, sometimes they’re in the Carroll School of Management—they have their own requirements there—so it’s very complicated,” said Grant Drinkwater, student senator and CSOM ’27.
Katie McCaffrey, student senator and MCAS ’25, suggested integrating the chatbot into EagleApps to inform students of the specific courses they could register for to fulfill outstanding requirements.
“I think what would be most useful is essentially being able to have a student upload their degree audit for the AI to point out where the gaps are, and then provide you with suggestions that are based on that semester’s course catalog,” McCaffrey said.
To accomplish this, however, the CDIL would have to collaborate with Information and Technology Services (ITS), which manages EagleApps, a process that would be completed after the initial version chatbot has already been released, FitzGibbon said.
“We could pull [the chatbot] together very soon, but it wouldn’t have all the EagleApps information or information about your courses … because that’s ITS, but we’re talking to ITS all the time, so if we’re giving them all these ideas, maybe they can figure out a way to merge it all together,” FitzGibbon said.
Advising students is only a small part of professors’ jobs, and they receive little formal training, Sarr said. Under the current system, especially competent advisors are often overburdened and forced to pick up the slack from other colleagues, Sarr added—a problem that the chatbot could potentially alleviate.
“It becomes a situation where the good people get hundreds of students, and the bad people decide, ‘Well, I don’t have to advise,’” Sarr said.
Sarr acknowledged that it is unrealistic to expect the chatbot to be implemented universally because certain professors are much more comfortable and knowledgeable about technology than others.
“Not even all faculty use Canvas, so to expect them all to use some platform is probably a big reach,” Sarr said.
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