Using a Chat Interface for a Data-Driven Course Planning Wizard

Authors

  • Francis Bolay Department of Information Technology School of Science and Technology Georgia Gwinnett College Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, U.S.A. https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8719-6462
  • Anca Doloc-Mihu Department of Information Technology School of Science and Technology Georgia Gwinnett College Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, U.S.A. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9960-5752
  • Cengiz Gunay Georgia Gwinnett College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32473/flairs.39.1.141829

Keywords:

Education, chatbot, Recommender System, Course Advising, Markov Decision Process

Abstract

Students often rely on academic advisors to plan their course schedules, but limited advising availability can make it difficult to receive timely guidance. Prior research at Georgia Gwinnett College proposed a course planning wizard using a Markov Decision Process (MDP) to analyze historical enrollment patterns and recommend courses for Data Science and Analytics students. Building on this work, this project develops a course recommendation system for all Information Technology majors. The system features a chat-style interface that allows students to easily interact with the tool and receive course suggestions. Using curriculum requirements and historical course success trends, the system generates ranked recommendations to support more informed course planning while reducing reliance on advisor availability.

Author Biographies

Francis Bolay, Department of Information Technology School of Science and Technology Georgia Gwinnett College Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, U.S.A.

Student majoring in Information Technology

Anca Doloc-Mihu, Department of Information Technology School of Science and Technology Georgia Gwinnett College Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, U.S.A.

Associate Professor of Information Technology

Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Logo

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Published

06-05-2026

How to Cite

Bolay, F., Doloc-Mihu, A., & Gunay, C. (2026). Using a Chat Interface for a Data-Driven Course Planning Wizard. The International FLAIRS Conference Proceedings, 39(1). https://doi.org/10.32473/flairs.39.1.141829

Issue

Vol. 39 No. 1 (2026): Proceedings of FLAIRS-39

Section

Posters

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Francis Bolay, Anca Doloc-Mihu, Cengiz Gunay

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.