SELFIE Helper, an Automated Support Chatbot for the SELFIE Platform

Abstract

SELFIE (Self-reflection on Effective Learning by Fostering the use of Innovative Educational technologies) is a free tool designed to assist schools in embedding digital technologies into teaching, learning and assessment. However, in many cases, school representatives have questions regarding the registration process. They have to ask SELFIE representatives in each involved country of the project and wait for their response. This approach does not allow them to finish the registration process before they get the answer and causes more work for SELFIE experts per country. SHERPA (SELFIE HElpeR & Pedagogical innovation Assistant) is a two-year Erasmus + ΚΑ3 project with a mission to enhance innovation in schools by supporting self-assessment processes for making better use of digital technology in teaching and learning. One of the key outputs of the SHERPA project is the SELFIE Helper, a component based on chatbot technology that is responsible for providing automated step-by-step assistance to schools when registering to the SELFIE platform. The goal of SELFIE Helper is to enable schools to further exploit SELFIE to its full potential as a tool for Digital Competence development through self-elevation. This paper presents the architecture of the SELFIE Helper tool and the technologies used for building it. Initial internal evaluation results show that the proposed approach can lead to the development of chatbots that can help users and provide automated support when this is necessary, thus improving processes, such as SELFIE registration.