One of the key areas of the Distance Learning at Scale (DLAS) programme is to investigate technology which will aid the delivery of online courses to large cohorts with minimal impact to course resourcing, user experience and course quality. 

One aspect of delivering online courses at scale is the increased burden on support staff answering administrative questions regarding the programme from a global audience across all timezones; questions such as: when does the course start?, how do I apply for the capstone?, how can I apply for a masters?, how can I check my application progress?, etc. These questions are usually answered by school offices or academics staff and are often repetitive, with the majority of answers already provided in guides, web pages or via other resources. 

A chatbot could be utilized to reduce the resource burden on general course support for administrative queries whilst providing users with an instant automated response at any time in the day or night.