The chatbot vendor, Ocelot, also provides a video library resource with short tutorials to help with financial aid inquiries.
OCELOT CHATBOT SOFTWARE
The machine learning software interacts conversationally to address routine inquiries, including answers customized for Iowa State.
"The goal of the chatbot project is to better meet students where they are and provide quicker and easier access to information."Ī pop-up window with a smiling mugshot of Cy and a "May I help you?" invitation appears in the lower right corner of the participating websites. "The chatbot allows students and families to ask questions 24/7 about financial aid, admissions, housing and student accounts," Sprouse said. The chatbot can converse in English and Spanish, with more languages - Mandarin Chinese, for example - on the way, Sprouse said. The interactive chat feature debuted on the registrar, financial aid and accounts receivable websites and is being added to the admissions, residence and Veterans Center sites. "The funding for this project came from our membership in the University Innovation Alliance which gives us an opportunity to focus our efforts on increasing retention and graduation of first-generation and low-income students," Sprouse said.Ĭurrent and prospective students (and their families) are the target chatbot audiences. Darcie Sprouse, Iowa State's UIA fellow, is managing the project. The chatbot project is funded in part by the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), a collaboration of public research universities working to help more students graduate. Iowa State's mascot is the face of a "chatbot" virtual assistant deployed this month on several student-focused websites to help users find answers to common questions. Visit to learn more.Have a question? Just ask Cy. Schools deploy Ocelot to improve enrollment yield and retention, support student services, and further financial literacy / debt education. Ocelot answers over 97.5% of chatbot interactions without the need for human intervention with over 40% of conversations conducted after standard business hours. The customizable Ocelot platform includes an unrivaled knowledgebase of content, including over 16,000 knowledgebase Q&A, and over 2,000 explainer videos. "Our approach is to make the deployment and maintenance as easy as possible."įounded in 2003, Ocelot (formerly known as FATV) is the nation's largest SaaS provider of Multilingual Artificially Intelligent Chatbots to higher education. "Schools want to deploy chatbots, but they know it can quickly become a massive undertaking," said Vangelis. The Ocelot knowledgebase continues to grow and expand in two ways: 1) Ocelot now provides content for all student service departments and 2) Ocelot schools have the option to share content with the entire Ocelot community. "Students and staff alike have welcomed the chatbot that now lives on our website and have found it to be an invaluable resource." "Ace has proven to be an effective solution for addressing multiple types of inquiries 24/7," said Clint Young, Associate Director of Communications and Enrollment Support, and Joan Zanders, Director of Financial Aid. Northern Virginia Community College launched their custom chatbot - Ace - earlier this year. The Ocelot Chatbot platform comes pre-loaded with an unrivaled and continually growing knowledgebase of text and video content spanning all student service departments, dramatically reducing the time it takes a school to launch and maintain their own customized chatbot. And as more schools use it, all of the Bots are getting smarter through machine learning." "Our chatbot platform helps schools meet students where they are. "We envision a world in which schools 'repeat themselves less, and engage students more'," said Damon Vangelis, Ocelot CEO.
Notable schools on the Ocelot platform include: Northern Virginia Community College, The George Washington University, California Institute of Technology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Iowa State University, and University of California Riverside.
12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Ocelot, the leading provider of Artificially Intelligent Conversational Chatbots for colleges and universities, announced today a new milestone: its 150th successful chatbot deployment.
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