A Chatbot Student Support System in Open and Distance Learning Institutions

The disruptive innovation of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots is affecting educational dominance, which must be considered by higher educational institutions. Open and Distance Learning (ODL) becomes imperative for the effective and interactive communication between the institutions and learners. Drawbacks of isolation, motivation, insufficient time to study, and delay feedback mechanisms are some of the challenges encountered by ODL learners. The consequences have led to an increase in students’ attrition rate, which is one of the key issues observed by many authors facing ODL institutions. The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), one of the ODL institutions in Nigeria, is limited to an existing e-ticketing support system which is manually operated. A study on 2000 students of the NOUN using an online survey method revealed that 579 students responded to the questionnaire, equalling 29%. Further findings revealed significant delay time responses and inadequate resolutions as major barriers affecting the e-ticketing system in the NOUN. However, despite the quantitative method employed in the study, an artificial intelligence chatbot for automatic responses was also developed using Python 3.8+, ChatterBot (Version 1.0.5) Chatbot Framework, SQLite (default ChatterBot Storage, NLTK, and Web Interface: Flask (for integration with a web application). In testing the system, out of the 579 respondents, 370, representing 64% of the respondents, claimed that the chatbot was extremely helpful in resolving their issues and complaints. The adaptation of an AI chatbot in an ODL institution as a support system reduces the attrition rate, thereby revolutionising support services’ potential in Open and Distance Learning systems.