MOOC-O-Bot: Using Cognitive Technologies to Extend Knowledge Support in MOOCs

There is an abundance of intelligent tutors and expert systems across all domains. Some are driven by 'cognitive technologies' and conversational agents, which have become common in providing an accessible interface to a range of devices. They are often used to provision initial support for businesses to guide users of their websites through frequently asked questions and help material. However, there are only few examples applied to the educational context, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in particular. This paper presents work in progress aiming to bring cognitive technologies to use in the running of MOOCs and supporting both instructors and students to answer content-related questions. The overall architecture of the system is presented, together with the modeling of the knowledge base in three different MOOCs from different disciplines. The approach is promising in offering a tool capable of providing teacher support, as well as direct student support, in dealing with the large amount of questions posted in discussion forums and in answering common questions regarding both the running of the course as well as content.