AI Pilot Research Study
Are you an instructor interested in integrating customized AI into your teaching this fall? We’re inviting select instructors to join a special pilot of the Virtual Study Assistant (VSA) - a chatbot that answers student questions using your own ELMS-Canvas course materials (including Panopto recordings!) to support student learning and engagement. This research on the VSA’s effectiveness will be conducted by faculty in the College of Education in collaboration with the Division of Information Technology (DIT). Recruitment for this study will continue through October 3, 2025.
This is a unique opportunity to:
- Enhance student access to timely, accurate course information and instructional materials
- Reduce the amount of repetitive questions during your office hours
- Contiribute to leading-edge educational research at UMD
Click the button below to indicate your interest in participating:
Watch the video below to learn more about the VSA and hear from instructors who have used it:
About the study
We are recruiting instructors interested in using the VSA during the Fall 2025 semester to participate in a pilot research study. The eligibility criteria include:
- Instructors who are teaching one section of a course with multiple sections taught by other instructors. Two or more instructors of a course must consent to participate, after which instructors will be randomly assigned to using the VSA or business as usual.
- Each instructor should have a seperate ELMS-Canvas site for their section of the course where the majority of course materials are posted.
After meeting eligibility criteria, ALL instructors will complete a short baseline survey and end of semester survey and report attendance at office hours during the semester. VSA instructors will receive access to the VSA on their course site in ELMS-Canvas, and training materials for using the VSA. Students enrolled in the VSA courses will receive surveys in the beginning and end of the course; students in the control courses will receive similar surveys about their AI usage.
The VSA learns your course content from the material posted on ELMS-Canvas to answer student questions and helps them with coursework and homework. As an instructor, you will have a lot of oversight; you can switch between answer mode (providing direct answers) and tutor mode (guiding students without providing direct answers), identify which course materials can be used to generate answers, and change these options as often as you’d like. Learn more about the VSA.
Learn more about the study by watching a brief information session.
Have more questions? Contact us at aistudyteam@umd.edu.
Did you know?
Our summer pilot work suggests students use the VSA to get immediate answers to questions when instructors or TAs are not available. Read the full executive report from our Summer I pilot of the VSA.
