Chatbots for the Information Acquisition at Universities – A Student’s View on the Application Area

Chatbots are currently widely used in many different application areas. Especially for topics relevant at the workplace, e.g., customer support or information acquisition, they represent a new type of natural language-based human-computer interface. Nonetheless, chatbots in university settings have received only limited attention, e.g., providing organizational support about studies or for courses and examinations. This branch of research is just emerging in the scientific community. Therefore, we conducted a questionnaire-based survey among 166 students of various disciplines and educational levels at a German university. By doing so, we wanted to survey (1) the requirements implementing a chatbot as well as (2) relevant topics and corresponding questions that chatbots should address. In addition, our findings indicate that chatbots are suitable for the university context and that many students are willing to use chatbots.