Chatbot Assessment: Best Practices for Artificial Intelligence in the Library

Fuente: ERIC Institute of Education Sciences

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Michelle Ehrenpreis, John DeLooper
Format:	Recurso educativo Open Access
Language:	en
Published:	2025
Subjects:	Academic Libraries Artificial Intelligence Natural Language Processing Intelligent Tutoring Systems Library Services Electronic Learning Web Sites Computer Uses in Education Information Seeking Information Management
Online Access:	Acceder al recurso
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author	Michelle Ehrenpreis John DeLooper
author_facet	Michelle Ehrenpreis John DeLooper Michelle Ehrenpreis John DeLooper
collection	Education Resources Information Center
contents	Chatbot Assessment: Best Practices for Artificial Intelligence in the Library Michelle Ehrenpreis John DeLooper Academic Libraries Artificial Intelligence Natural Language Processing Intelligent Tutoring Systems Library Services Electronic Learning Web Sites Computer Uses in Education Information Seeking Information Management In November 2019, the Leonard Lief Library implemented Ivy.ai, a proprietary chatbot on its website. This implementation was the first academic library installation of a vendor-supplied chatbot to be discussed in the professional literature. This chatbot functioned as a new tool that assisted users seeking information from the library website. User questions provided insight to the authors about the kinds of topics students searched for via the library website. In April 2023, the chatbot's vendor began using OpenAI's ChatGPT Application Programming Interface (API) to improve the chatbot's functionality. This change, from a rules-based chatbot system to a transformer model, enhanced the chatbot's ability to provide answers to patrons. To better understand this major change, the authors assessed the chatbot's usage during the Spring 2023 semester. This assessment revealed the kinds of questions the chatbot struggled to answer, and possible reasons why. The assessment's findings demonstrated how chatbots can successfully function as a enhancement to the library website. The article also presents best practices for libraries looking to implement or experiment with chatbots and contributes to the ongoing discussion of artificial intelligence in libraries.
format	Recurso educativo Open Access
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institution	ERIC Institute of Education Sciences
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spellingShingle	Chatbot Assessment: Best Practices for Artificial Intelligence in the Library Michelle Ehrenpreis John DeLooper Academic Libraries Artificial Intelligence Natural Language Processing Intelligent Tutoring Systems Library Services Electronic Learning Web Sites Computer Uses in Education Information Seeking Information Management Chatbot Assessment: Best Practices for Artificial Intelligence in the Library Michelle Ehrenpreis John DeLooper Academic Libraries Artificial Intelligence Natural Language Processing Intelligent Tutoring Systems Library Services Electronic Learning Web Sites Computer Uses in Education Information Seeking Information Management In November 2019, the Leonard Lief Library implemented Ivy.ai, a proprietary chatbot on its website. This implementation was the first academic library installation of a vendor-supplied chatbot to be discussed in the professional literature. This chatbot functioned as a new tool that assisted users seeking information from the library website. User questions provided insight to the authors about the kinds of topics students searched for via the library website. In April 2023, the chatbot's vendor began using OpenAI's ChatGPT Application Programming Interface (API) to improve the chatbot's functionality. This change, from a rules-based chatbot system to a transformer model, enhanced the chatbot's ability to provide answers to patrons. To better understand this major change, the authors assessed the chatbot's usage during the Spring 2023 semester. This assessment revealed the kinds of questions the chatbot struggled to answer, and possible reasons why. The assessment's findings demonstrated how chatbots can successfully function as a enhancement to the library website. The article also presents best practices for libraries looking to implement or experiment with chatbots and contributes to the ongoing discussion of artificial intelligence in libraries.
title	Chatbot Assessment: Best Practices for Artificial Intelligence in the Library
topic	Academic Libraries Artificial Intelligence Natural Language Processing Intelligent Tutoring Systems Library Services Electronic Learning Web Sites Computer Uses in Education Information Seeking Information Management
url	https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1487828

if (filemtime($filename) + $maxlifetime < time()) { unlink($filename); $count++; } } return $count; } /** * A function that is called internally when session data is to be saved. * * @param string $sessId The current session ID * @param string $data The session data to write * * @return bool */ protected function saveSession($sessId, $data): bool { $sessFile = $this->path . '/sess_' . $sessId; if ($handle = fopen($sessFile, 'w')) { $return = false; // Lock the file for exclusive access to avoid issues with multiple // processes writing session simultaneously: if (flock($handle, LOCK_EX)) { $return = fwrite($handle, $data); // Make sure that there's no trailing data by truncating the file to // the correct length: ftruncate($handle, strlen($data)); fflush($handle); flock($handle, LOCK_UN); } fclose($handle); if ($return !== false) { return true; } } // If we got this far, something went wrong with the file output... // It is tempting to throw an exception here, but this code is called // outside of the context of exception handling, so all we can do is // echo a message.

// Anecdotal testing Today and Yesterday seems to indicate destroy() // is called by the garbage collector and everything is good. // Something to keep in mind though. return 0; } /** * Write function that is called when session data is to be saved. * * @param string $sessId The current session ID * @param string $data The session data to write * * @return bool */ public function write($sessId, $data): bool { if ($this->writesDisabled) { return true; } return $this->saveSession($sessId, $data); } /** * A function that is called internally when session data is to be saved. * * @param string $sessId The current session ID * @param string $data The session data to write * * @return bool */ abstract protected function saveSession($sessId, $data): bool; }

* * @return void */ public function writeClose() { // The assumption is that we're using PHP's ext/session. // session_write_close() will actually overwrite $_SESSION with an // empty array on completion -- which leads to a mismatch between what // is in the storage object and $_SESSION. To get around this, we // temporarily reset $_SESSION to an array, and then re-link it to // the storage object. // // Additionally, while you _can_ write to $_SESSION following a // session_write_close() operation, no changes made to it will be // flushed to the session handler. As such, we now mark the storage // object isImmutable. $storage = $this->getStorage(); if (! $storage->isImmutable()) { $_SESSION = $storage->toArray(true); session_write_close(); $storage->fromArray($_SESSION); $storage->markImmutable(); } } /** * Attempt to set the session name * * If the session has already been started, or if the name provided fails * validation, an exception will be raised. * * @param string $name * @return SessionManager * @throws Exception\InvalidArgumentException */ public function setName($name) { if ($this->sessionExists()) { throw new Exception\InvalidArgumentException( 'Cannot set session name after a session has already started'

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