Using SMS as an interface for a virtual mentoring system

Abstract

Previous research has been done that has explored the use of embodied conversational agents as mentors in faculty-student relationships. This previous system requires users to go to a unique website to interact with the conversational agent. This paper presents the design and development of a conversational agent mentor that uses a more pervasive application for dialogue, short message service (SMS). The SMS conversational agent is constructed to be used as a virtual mentor, to mentor undergraduate computer science majors at a Historically Black College (HBCU) who are considering pursuing a graduate degree in computing. A study has been designed to compare the effectiveness of the SMS conversational agent to the original conversational agent, an embodied conversational agent (ECA).