AI chatbot lightens the workload for NTU lecturers

There may be no such thing as a stupid question in schools, but there are questions with obvious answers. These questions, from students, make Assistant Professor Leonard Ng shake his head.

- Osmond Chia

Every day, educators at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) like Prof Ng receive a slew of e-mails from students seeking feedback on assignments or asking about upcoming tests.

"We get questions like, 'When's the exam?' or 'Should we turn up next week?' The answers are usually available online or in e-mails, but sometimes, students just don't check," he said.

These inquiries tend to surge right before a test - often late at night as students cram for it during last-minute revision sessions.

This is a problem for artificial intelligence (AI), Prof Ng thought, prompting him and a team of lecturers from NTU's School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) to develop Leodar, an AI chatbot that doubles as a teaching and administrative assistant. Leodar is among the earliest custom generative AI chatbots rolled out to students at NTU.

Since its launch in January, e-mails from students have dwindled to just a handful per week for each tutor, down from several a day. Most queries are now handled directly by Leodar, which has answered over 12,000 questions from more than 150 users in 2024.

This has freed up teaching staff to handle more complex queries, Prof Ng told The Sunday Times.