When Deakin University students ask the university’s cognitive computing platform DeakinSync for “help” they are offered options. Do they want financial help, help with housing, with course details, or are they depressed?

Deakin vice-chancellor and president Jane den Hollander explains: “As soon as they press that, it triggers a connection to the counsellors. [Preventing] one suicide pays for the system.”

It’s a stark example of how the platform supports individual students, but also a pointer that Deakin’s strategy to “bet the house on the digital frontier”, as den Hollander describes it, is paying off.

The University’s chief digital officer and chief information officer, William Confalonieri, explains that the university’s plan to stride out to the edge of the digital frontier straddles two fronts.

“It’s a defensive strategy; we believe this will be a disrupter. If we don’t move we risk being disrupted.

“It’s a competitive advantage if we move fast and are brave and bold it gives us a competitive advantage. We can create a university reputation which is a core asset,” he says.

Career or course adviser

The university has partnered with IBM to leverage the Watson platform, initially to provide round-the-clock support to students through DeakinSync. Confalonieri says cognitive computing is giving rise to smart agents or chatbots, able to deliver what he describes as “extreme personalisation”.

An intelligent agent maintains a conversation between DeakinSync and each of the university’s 50,000-plus students. The unique conversation means every single student sees different content, says Confalonieri.

“Watson knows the student, what they are studying, what campus they are on, whether they are domestic or international. When they ask where the library is, it knows where the student is located.”

Den Hollander says there have already been significant benefits for the university and students and in the future she expects the role of DeakinSync to expand so it becomes a career or course adviser, presenting options and alternatives to students. It might also interact directly with students who have missed an assignment deadline or not connected for a few days, even calling a student to ask if they need help.

Smart assistants

Confalonieri believes the ability to deliver a highly personalised service will quickly establish a line between those organisations that succeed and those that do not.

In addition, he says, the university is working with the internet of things on location and proximity services, where students who opt in are automatically provided with even greater levels of personalisation.

In the future, he says, “Everyone will depend on smart assistants. Education will be transformed by cognitive computing and immersive reality.”

Den Hollander, who says she is highly optimistic about the benefits of artificial intelligence, adds: “Why wouldn’t we use Watson to introduce the student community to machines and AI? It is in the spaces between the machines where we will be educating people for the roles of the future.”

This story was produced in partnership with IBM.