Madison the chat bot makes its WCU debut
You may have stumbled across her name at the bottom right hand corner of the myWCU
page, inviting you for a chat if you鈥檙e in need of support from the Division of Information
Technology.
Don鈥檛 be afraid. Engage in a chat. Madison, as she is called, is Western Carolina University鈥檚 new chat bot, which was launched Tuesday, Feb. 25, as a beta test by the IT Help Desk. The chat bot is an interactive knowledge-based online chart platform that gives users the ability to ask IT-related questions and get a response using natural language.
Members of the IT Help Desk staff were on hand in the Technology Commons at Hunter Library to show students, and faculty and staff members how to engage with Madison.
鈥淭he students who have come in have cheerfully asked it questions,鈥� said Kenny Chapman, IT Help Desk manager. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had a couple of people to actually stump the chat bot, which we knew would happen. We are in beta right now. We鈥檝e gotten some good feedback so far.鈥�
The idea of Madison stemmed from another project IT was involved in. Chapman said its creation was a group effort, starting with Chris Baxley, who has been dubbed the father of the project because of the backend building he provided. The IT Help Desk was responsible for inputting the knowledge into the chat bot, while IT鈥檚 internal marketing designed Madison鈥檚 avatar and will promote the chat bot going forward.
So how did she get her name? When deciding on the name, one thing was certain 鈥� the chat bot was not going to have a cat name. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 been used for everything,鈥� Chapman said with a laugh.
The name Madison was suggested in reference to Robert Madison, the founder of what is today known as 甜瓜视频app. The suggestion eventually stuck.
Madison uses artificial intelligence, therefore she is always learning, Chapman said.
鈥淲hen you type a question, Madison does its best based on the information that鈥檚 been initially input to come back with an answer,鈥� Chapman said. 鈥淚f you ask a question and Madison is not quite sure, Madison will return up to three responses that start with, 鈥楧id you mean 鈥�?鈥� If one of those is something that you did mean, then you click on it and Madison will learn that if someone utters this, this is what they are meaning. If it鈥檚 not one of those, they can answer none of the above and we get to see that on the backend, and that gives us time to decide if we should add that as part of Madison鈥檚 knowledge going forward.鈥�
If Madison doesn鈥檛 know the answer, she will ask if the user would like to open an IT ticket and she will open it, rather than the user having to go to the self-help portal, which was the traditional way to open a ticket.
Madison will be piloted throughout the spring semester. The data received will be shared with Executive Council with the hopes of expanding its use beyond IT. Chapman said Madison could be used for such things as adding cash to your Cat Card, checking on financial aid status and sending out graduation reminders.
During the beta phase, IT also will determine how much the service is going to cost, while also collecting customer service scores on the overall feel, look and experience. Chapman is hoping he can sell the benefits of Madison to other areas of campus.
鈥淚 really think the value add is there, and what we鈥檙e getting out of it is 24/7, almost 365 days of abilities to provide answers to frequently asked questions that otherwise people are either having to do a search on, or call during 8 to 5 hours,鈥� Chapman said. 鈥淧eople don鈥檛 always work 8 to 5 when they鈥檙e doing this kind of thing.
鈥淚f I鈥檓 that prospective student and I need to fill out my financial aid forms and I鈥檓 working with my parents on this and it鈥檚 10 o鈥檆lock at night and we get stuck somewhere, we鈥檙e stuck until 8 o鈥檆lock in the morning. If I鈥檓 able to ask the chat bot, I鈥檓 able to continue working on that.鈥�
But for now, for any IT questions, just ask Madison.
