UCI has a chatbot/conversational agent we implemented 3 years ago called ANTswers at http://www.lib.uci.edu/antswers.  We use the open source and free Program-O as the back-end and AIML as the programming language.


We evaluate each conversation to make adjustments to the code and to also keep statistics, which I evaluate at the end of each quarter.  We text mine the questions asked to help get a clearer idea of the types of questions our students are asking and how they are asking them.


I also have all of the original code up on eScholarship if anyone wants to play with it: https://escholarship.org/uc/uci_libs_antswers.

ANTswers poster: https://figshare.com/articles/ANTswers_an_interactive_library_FAQ/1454540.

If you have any questions, please let me know.
Best, Danielle
ANTswers: an interactive library FAQ - figshare.com<https://figshare.com/articles/ANTswers_an_interactive_library_FAQ/1454540>
figshare.com

Poster presented at the 2015 American Library Association. ANTswers, introduced in March of 2013, is an interactive beta chatbot that respons to frequently ...




________________________________
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Diaz, Noel A <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2017 8:08:41 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Chatbots & conversational interfaces

I have been playing with a few bots to make some of our internal tools easier to reach from Slack (but mainly a self-hosted Mattermost instance).  I am using the Botman package (https://botman.io) to code them with php.  Getting them done has been very simple.  Very handy to get notifications on problems and to do quick lookups of data through the bot and into the channel.
Installation BotMan - Create messaging bots in PHP with ease<https://botman.io/>
botman.io
Edit on Installation. Installation & Setup; Basic Usage; Cache Drivers; BotMan is a framework agnostic PHP library that is designed to simplify the task of developing ...



Now I’m looking to leverage natural language parsing (trying out first with this service https://api.ai). It definitely has a lot of potential for both internal and external users.
[[log in to unmask]]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]]<https://api.ai/>

Conversational UX Platform for products and services - API.AI<https://api.ai/>
api.ai
Want to build real multi-channel intelligence into your product? API.AI is the most mature Natural Language Understanding platform in the market.



-- Noel

—
  Noel Díaz
  Instruction & Research Services Administrator
  Information Technology Department
  Purdue University Libraries
  E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
  Phone: 765-494-1787


On 2/23/17, 2:14 PM, "Code for Libraries on behalf of Emily Ferrier" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi all,

We're doing some preliminary research on the use of chatbots/conversational interfaces in libraries. I looked at Code4Lib list archives and journal and found a couple of old threads. If you are working on something in this realm and are interesting in sharing, I'd love to talk! Right now we're considering a Slack integration, but would like to know what others have done (particularly, platform agnostic tools), considered, what worked and what didn't work.

Thanks!
Emily

Emily Ferrier
Library | Senior Librarian
Olin College of Engineering
1000 Olin Way| Needham, MA 02492-1200
Tel:   781-292-2386 | http://library.olin.edu<http://library.olin.edu/>
Leading the Revolution in Engineering Education
[278]