CHATBOT RELATED TO COLLEGE QUERIES

What is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is an Artificial Intelligence program which is built on the purpose of

interacting with a user based on their respective queries. It uses the process of
Natural Language for interaction with a user. A chatbot is based on doing the
analysis of the question of the user and then returning the response of the user.
This is the idea behind a Chatbot.

What is Automated ChatBot for College Queries?

We are aiming to build an automatic chatbot for answering college-related queries

that are frequently asked by students. Students have a lot of queries and the

queries are quite varied. They need answers to their queries quickly but, this is not

possible as they need to browse through the entire website or approach Admins,

which is both time taking and cumbersome. Hence to facilitate this process, we

need to automate this process. Our chatbot will serve this purpose efficiently by

giving the most appropriate answers to the queries

Advantages

User does not have to go personally to college office for the enquiry. It enables

students to be updated with college cultural activities. This application saves time

for the students as well as teaching and non-teaching staff’s. Chat bot can run on

local computers and phones, though most of the time it is accessed through the

internet.

Chat Bot is typically perceived as engaging software entity which humans can talk

to. It can be interesting, inspiring and intriguing. It runs from standard computers

to fashionable smart mobile devices. Chat bots talk in almost every major
language. It is an extremely useful system for disabled people.
Chatbots can provide immediate customer support 24/ 7.

They can handle multiple customer queries simultaneously, improving efficiency.

Chatbots can help businesses save on operational costs by automating routine

tasks.

Best Practices for Chatbot Development

Define clear objectives and use cases for the chatbot.

Test the chatbot extensively to ensure accurate responses and smooth user
experience.

Continuously monitor and analyze chatbot interactions to identify areas for

improvement.

Outline of the Process

1. Define the Purpose and Scope: Determine the specific types of college
queries your chatbot will handle. This could include admissions information,
course offerings, campus facilities, events, etc.
2. Gather Data: Collect relevant information that your chatbot will need to
provide responses to user queries. This could include details about the
college, courses, admission requirements, frequently asked questions, etc. You
can also consider using existing datasets or APIs for this purpose.
3. Choose a Platform or Framework: Select a platform or framework for
building your chatbot. Common options include using a chatbot development
framework like Rasa, Dialogflow, Microsoft Bot Framework, or building a
custom solution using programming languages like Python with libraries such
as NLTK or spaCy.
4. Design Conversation Flows: Create conversation flows or dialogues that map
out how the chatbot will interact with users. Consider the different paths users
may take and plan responses accordingly. Design a user-friendly interface that
allows users to easily navigate through the conversation.
5. Develop and Train the Chatbot: Implement the chatbot using the chosen
platform or framework. Train the chatbot using the gathered data and refine
its responses based on user feedback. This may involve natural language
understanding (NLU) for interpreting user queries and natural language
generation (NLG) for generating appropriate responses.
6. Integrate with Backend Systems (Optional): If your chatbot needs to access
backend systems or databases to retrieve information, integrate it with these
systems using APIs or other methods.
7. Test and Iterate: Test the chatbot extensively to identify and fix any bugs or
issues. Gather feedback from users and use it to improve the chatbot's
 performance and user experience. Iterate on the design and functionality as
needed.
8. Deploy: Once you're satisfied with the chatbot's performance, deploy it to
your chosen platform or channels where users can interact with it. This could
be on a website, mobile app, messaging platform, or any other relevant
channels.
9. Monitor and Maintain: Continuously monitor the chatbot's performance and
user interactions. Update the chatbot as needed to keep it accurate and up-
to-date with the latest information.

About Dataset

As we are aiming to build an automated chatbot for college queries, the dataset is

not publicly available so, we collected dataset (w.r.t IIITD College). The following

are the steps for Dataset Collection.

Dataset Collection

The dataset has been acquired by scrapping various sites and pages such as the

admissions page of CBIT, the Reddit page dedicated to CBIT, and all the questions

related to CBIT from Quora and assembling them. Also, paragraphs related to

all domains like admissions, fees, faculty, etc. The dataset was built in this format

for applying generative models that require the dataset in such a format Dataset is

in the form of the text question and answers i.e. for every question; we have the

most relevant answers scrapped from the popular social networking sites —

Facebook, Quora, and Reddit. We also scrapped the data from the college website
for some factual answers such as details of the faculty and the courses.

Backend

ChatterBot Library

Chatter Bot is a Python library that is designed to deliver automated responses to

user inputs. It makes use of a combination of ML algorithms to generate many

different types of responses. This feature allows developers to build chatbots using

python that can converse with humans and deliver appropriate and relevant

responses. Not just that, the ML algorithms help the bot to improve its

performance with experience.

Another excellent feature of ChatterBot is its language independence. The library

is designed in a way that makes it possible to train your bot in multiple

programming languages.

How to make chatbot using python?

I’ll take a step by step procedure to create a chat bot and how to create a

environment related college queries.

To build a chatbot in Python, you have to import all the necessary packages and

initialize the variables you want to use in your chatbot project.

1. Prepare the Dependencies

The first step in creating a chatbot in Python with the ChatterBot library is to

install the library in your system. It is best if you create and use a new Python

virtual environment for the installation. To do so, you have to write and execute

this command in your Python terminal:

pip install chatterbot

pip install chatterbot_corpus

2. Import Classes

Importing classes is the second step in the Python chatbot creation process. All

you need to do is import two classes — ChatBot from chatterbot and ListTrainer

from chatterbot.trainers. To do this, you can execute the following command:

from chatterbot import ChatBot

from chatterbot.trainers import ListTrainer

3. Create and Train the Chatbot

This is the third step on creating chatbot in python. The chatbot you are creating

will be an instance of the class “ChatBot.” After creating a new ChatterBot

instance, you can train the bot to improve its performance. Training ensures that

the bot has enough knowledge to get started with specific responses to specific

inputs.

Conclusion

As AI continues to advance, chatbots will become more sophisticated and capable

of handling complex interactions.