Course chatbot trial finds bounded grade gains with weaker adjusted evidence

A course leader may struggle to reach students before small missed tasks accumulate. Include faculty, advising, student representatives, institutional research and IT in discovery. Ask which tasks are missed, what outreach already exists and who answers replies. Offer a bounded pilot in one stable course with an agreed comparator and complete cost capture. The value hypothesis is more timely access to existing support. This trial justifies testing that hypothesis locally, not guaranteeing an A/B increase. Avoid promising retention gains, staff reductions or a return on investment. A campus without reliable student data and response capacity needs readiness work first.

Design a read-only connection to course status and an approved response queue before enabling outbound targeting. Prerequisites include accurate rosters, consent records, faculty-approved deadlines and a maintained contact directory. Test stale enrollment, incorrect recipient mapping, ambiguous questions and withdrawals using synthetic records. Compare the full workflow with current outreach, including unresolved questions and staff review time.

Proposed proof of value

report prespecified course outcomes and uncertainty alongside routing accuracy and response delays. A generative copilot may help staff draft content, but it needs separate factual review and must not silently alter grades, enrollment or financial records.

Assign an academic sponsor, a service lead and an independent evaluator. Build message templates, an escalation rota, correction procedures and student orientation before enrollment. Dependencies include approved data handling, accessible communication and staff training in sensitive disclosures.

Proposed acceptance criteria

every sampled recipient mapping and opt-out test passes, every message has an accountable content owner, and all prespecified outcomes and operating costs are reported before expansion. These are proposed local gates, not study results. Watch for messaging fatigue, delayed escalation and selective participation. Keep alternative contact routes available and review whether support demand exceeds staffing.