ABSTRACT
In this paper, we empirically examine and assess the effectiveness of a chatbot workshop as experiential teaching and learning tool to engage undergraduate students enrolled in an elective course "Doing Business with A.I." in the Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB) at Singapore Management University. The chatbot workshop provides non-STEM students with an opportunity to acquire basic skills to build a chatbot prototype using the 'Dialogflow' program. The workshop and the experiential learning activity are designed to impart conversation and user-centric design know how and know why to students. A key didactical aspect which informs the design and flow of the chatbot workshop is that novice learners with no or very little knowledge about A.I. recognize and create the important linkage between knowledge inputs and outputs of conversational agents powered by natural language processing (NLP) so that user queries can be effectively addressed. According to the study results, 90.7% of all surveyed students (n = 43) were satisfied with the experiential learning chatbot workshop; 81.4% of the respondents felt engaged while 81.3% of the participants reported moderate to high levels of competencies (81.3%) as result of the hands-on workshop. Almost all students surveyed (97.7%) felt that the experiential chatbot workshop had met the expected learning outcomes. Besides presenting empirical data that underscore the pedagogical usefulness of conducting an experiential Chatbot workshop in basic A.I. classes with special reference to NLP, we are trying to corroborate a conceptual model developed from learning theories and technology mediated learning (TML) models aimed at measuring the effects of a chatbot practicum on students' engagement and motivation as potential drivers of successfully acquiring basic NLP skills and learner satisfaction. The paper provides useful practical information for instructors interested in deploying a practical chatbot workshop as effective TML tool in a tertiary educational context aimed at making learners 'future-ready'. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10639-023-11795-5.
ABSTRACT
AMOD is a web-based program that aids in the functional evaluation of nucleotide sequences through sequence characterization and antisense morpholino oligonucleotide (target site) selection. Submitted sequences are analyzed by translation initiation site prediction algorithms and sequence-to-sequence comparisons; results are used to characterize sequence features required for morpholino design. Within a defined subsequence, base composition and homodimerization values are computed for all putative morpholino oligonucleotides. Using these properties, morpholino candidates are selected and compared with genomic and transcriptome databases with the goal to identify target-specific enriched morpholinos. AMOD has been used at the University of Minnesota to design approximately 200 morpholinos for a functional genomics screen in zebrafish. The AMOD web server and a tutorial are freely available to both academic and commercial users at http://www.secretomes.umn.edu/AMOD/.
