COL–NUS AI Helpdesk Cuts Support Wait Times for Samoa's Online Students

Universities in small island states often lack the ICT staff to resolve routine learner queries quickly. Commonwealth of Learning (COL) research during the pandemic found that up to 25% of online learners' questions were about the learning platform itself, not course content — support that overstretched IT teams struggle to provide promptly.
In 2023, COL and the National University of Samoa (NUS) built a GPT-powered help desk into NUS's Moodle instance as part of a COL regional distance-education workstream supported by New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Before launch, COL and NUS ran a briefing webinar for faculty and staff on the chat interface and the GPT-powered help desk.
Over a three-week trial, the tool logged more than 300 student messages in a single week. Professor Ioana Chan Mow of NUS's Department of Computer Science said faculty and staff were glad of the collaboration with COL on the AI-powered Moodle help desk.
The trial was short and the public record covers usage volume and staff reception rather than a controlled study of learning outcomes; neither source reviewed discloses a data-retention or privacy policy for the chatbot's interaction logs.

Read the full analysis: https://opentextbooks.colvee.org/connectionsvol28no3/chapter_samoa-pioneers-ai-powered-learner-support.html