Usabilty of artificial intelligent conversational agents as student support service in distance education

Learner support systems are one of the essential components of distance education. Rapid improvements in information and communication technology ensure more effective and efficient support services to be available for distance learners. Distance education applications that started with correspondence and expanded to masses through radio and television have gained a momentum with the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies in the field.The main purpose of the current study was examining the role of and function of a chat agent (chatbot) in distance education as a support system. An AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) based chatbot is provided as a support service to the learners enrolled in the Anadolu University Distance Education System. A mixed methodology utilizing both qualitative and quantitative techniques is used to explore the potential of chat agents in distance learning.The report starts with a comprehensive literature review and prolongs with the purpose, importance, and rationale of the study. After clarifying the methodology, results, conclusions, and directions for future research are discussed in the final section.Keywords: distance education, student support, artificial intelligence, conversational agent, chatbot