Closing the loop: customized coding courses and chatbots embedded in a virtual lab to teach bioprocesses

Current progress in digitalization has led to a wide interest in learning more from available data. Advanced data analytics can be achieved through commercially available software; however, learning to program allows for more flexibility and, ultimately, more freedom in the potentially tailor-suited investigation. Among other programming languages, Python is one of the most requested, in industry and research alike. To intensify the earlier efforts and create both a pedagogical framework to teach programming to (bio)chemical engineers, and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions, we explore the integration of sPyCE and FermentAI into BioVL, a virtual laboratory for teaching (bio)processes, previously implemented by the authors. sPyCE is an open-source series of Python courses tailored to (bio)chemical engineers, FermentAI is a chatbot trained to answer questions about fermentation processes. The main goal of this work is to enable students to (i) learn (bio)processes and how to model them, and (ii) ask questions to a chatbot to clarify their doubts. We believe that the Python tutorials will enable students with different backgrounds and programming skills to learn how to model (bio)processes. Moreover, the chatbot will enable students to ask for clarification right away, without having to search for an answer or wait for a teacher to reply.