Practice Matrix · Meso

Student Support and Guidance

Institutional governance · Advising, tutoring, accessibility support and student-facing AI services beyond the course itself.

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practices

Who

Where

Source report

The reading of this intersection

The count in the cell shows density; what the intersection says is carried by the reading below.

Student support is the domain in which deployed systems are most readily identified and least readily compared. One institution names its assistant and reports it in continuous use across rounds. A second states explicitly that the assistant in operation is rule-based rather than generative, with generative integration still under investigation. A third has moved from single tools to a portfolio held under one project, covering early warning, AI-assisted feedback and conversational agents. A fourth reports two named assistants at pilot stage, one for students and one for the staff who author their modules.

The range extending from a rule-based chatbot to a research portfolio is contained within a single row of this matrix. Reading that row as a single level of maturity would obscure precisely the distinction the sources take care to preserve.

Who, and where

The actors carrying out the practice and where they are. Where a source does not name the institution, no attribution is made.

Institutions and actors

Anadolu University
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
University of Jyväskylä

Countries

Türkiye
Spain
Not stated in the source
Finland

Context

Higher education

How it was done

Each record stands with its imprint, its short reading and the sentence found in the source. Quotations are not shortened, so that a reader can check the inference.

Rule-based chatbot for non-academic student support

A chatbot answers student questions on enrolment, examinations and graduation. The institution is explicit that the deployed assistant is rule-based rather than generative, while research on integrating large language models into academic and non-academic support runs separately at the Student Affairs Department of the Faculty of Open Education.

Institution: Anadolu University
Country: Türkiye
Delivery model: Open and distance
Context: Higher education
Contributed by: not stated in the source
Year: 2024
Maturity: Established
Scalability: Embedded
Transferability: Established
Source report: D3.1

Evidence

The institution distinguishes the deployed rule-based assistant from the generative systems still under investigation, so the maturity claim is bounded by the source itself.

A rule-based AI chatbot is being used for non-academic (administrative) support to answer student questions about enrolment, examinations, graduation, and more.

D3.1, p. 32

LIS project: early-warning, AI-assisted feedback and conversational agents

Operational practices introduced and expanded since October 2024 include AI-based early-warning systems for students, AI-assisted feedback, empathic conversational agents, pilots for automated assessment and personalised learning support. The range shows an institution moving from single tools to a portfolio held under one project.

Institution: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Country: Spain
Delivery model: Fully online
Context: Higher education
Contributed by: not stated in the source
Year: 2025
Maturity: Established
Scalability: Established
Transferability: Piloted
Source report: D3.2

Evidence

Reported by the institution with a public project address; some components are named as pilots, which keeps the maturity coding below full deployment.

LIS uses LLMs and Generative AI for AI-based early-warning systems for students, AI-assisted feedback, empathic conversational agents

D3.2, p. 43

AIDA and AIMWA: assistants piloted for students and for content authors

Pilot projects at an institution the source does not name trial two institutional tools: a digital assistant intended to support students as a study companion, and a module writing assistant intended to support staff in creating and reworking content. The pairing repeats the pattern seen elsewhere, where the same institution builds one instrument for learners and another for the staff who design their learning.

Institution: not stated in the source
Country: Not stated in the source
Delivery model: Fully online
Context: Higher education
Contributed by: not stated in the source
Year: 2025
Maturity: Piloted
Scalability: Established
Transferability: Piloted
Source report: D3.2

Evidence

Reported by an anonymous support staff respondent who names both tools and describes them as pilots. The source does not name the institution, so no attribution is made here.

There are pilot projects happening to trial institutional tools such as AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Digital Assistant) to support students as a study buddy, and AIMWA (Artificial Intelligence Module Writing Assistant) to support staff

D3.2, p. 25

Minerva, a virtual assistant on the university web pages

A chatbot named Minerva has been in use on the university web pages since 2023. Participants in the third round still name it as the institutional practice they recognise, which makes it one of the few assistants in the partnership that respondents identify by name across rounds.

Institution: University of Jyväskylä
Country: Finland
Delivery model: not stated in the source
Context: Higher education
Contributed by: not stated in the source
Year: 2023
Maturity: Established
Scalability: Established
Transferability: Established
Source report: D3.1

Evidence

Recorded by the institution in the first round and named independently by a respondent in the third, which is stronger evidence of operation than a single self-report.

Virtual assistant: Chatbot called ‘Minerva’ is in use in the university webpages (2023-)

D3.1, p. 33