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A Review of Conversational Agents in Education

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Technology and Innovation in Learning, Teaching and Education (TECH-EDU 2022)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1720))

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Abstract

The use of mobile conversations is increasing all around the world. A conversational agent (CA) is mostly useful due to the fast response times and their simple nature. Recently, we have seen the development and increasing use of dialog systems on the Web. A conversational agent (CA) is a system capable of conversing with a user in natural language, in a way that it simulates a human dialog. Examples of CA can be found in several areas, including healthcare, entertainment, business, and education. In this paper a state of the art review of these dialog systems is presented, comprising different categories, different approaches and trends. The purpose of this work is to identify and compare the main existing approaches for building CA, categorizing them and highlighting the main strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, it seeks to contextualize their use in an educational context and to discover the issues related to this task that may help in the choice of future investigations in the area of conversational natural language processing in educational context.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the RD Project “Continental Factory of Future, (CONTINENTAL FoF) / POCI-01-0247-FEDER-047512”, financed by the European Regional Development Fund(ERDF), through the Program “Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI)/PORTUGAL 2020”, under the management of aicep Portugal Global – Trade Investment Agency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade de Trás-Os-Montes E Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal

    Carlos Rodrigues, Arsénio Reis, Rodrigo Pereira, Paulo Martins, José Sousa & Tiago Pinto

  2. Universidade Aberta, Aberta, Portugal

    Carlos Rodrigues

  3. INESC-TEC, Vila Real, Portugal

    Arsénio Reis, Paulo Martins, José Sousa & Tiago Pinto

Authors
  1. Carlos Rodrigues
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  2. Arsénio Reis
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  3. Rodrigo Pereira
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  4. Paulo Martins
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  5. José Sousa
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  6. Tiago Pinto
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tiago Pinto .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal

    Arsénio Reis

  2. University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal

    João Barroso

  3. University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal

    Paulo Martins

  4. University of Peloponnese, Tripoli, Greece

    Athanassios Jimoyiannis

  5. National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan

    Ray Yueh-Min Huang

  6. Nova IMS, Lisbon, Portugal

    Roberto Henriques

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Rodrigues, C., Reis, A., Pereira, R., Martins, P., Sousa, J., Pinto, T. (2022). A Review of Conversational Agents in Education. In: Reis, A., Barroso, J., Martins, P., Jimoyiannis, A., Huang, R.YM., Henriques, R. (eds) Technology and Innovation in Learning, Teaching and Education. TECH-EDU 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1720. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22918-3_37

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22918-3_37

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-22917-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-22918-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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