UMBC Students Build AI Chatbot for myUMBC Project for IS 636: Structured Systems Analysis and Design Three UMBC Information Systems students, Pavithra Gottipati, Andrew Meiller, and Sakshi Jaju teamed up in IS 636 – Structured Systems Analysis and Design, taught by IS Professor Lei Zhang, to design and prototype an AI-powered chatbot for the myUMBC portal. Their project focused on improving how undergraduate and graduate students find answers to questions and get support about campus services. 

Their chatbot supports topics including billing, financial services, library resources, career services, and IT support; integrates with myUMBC Help/Request Tracker and Student Business Services; and includes analytics, monitoring, and administrative tools. They used a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) approach with
  • A sentence transformer model retrieves the closest frequently asked question (FAQ) using vector embeddings
  • A Microsoft Phi-3 Mini Instruct LLM system to generate fallback responses when no close match is found in the FAQ
  • Secure NLP/LLM hosting, integrated knowledge base, and API connectivity within the UMBC ecosystem
This post is adapted from text in a student spotlight on the IS department's Instagram feed. You can read more about the students and their project in a post on the IS department's website here.
]]> Three UMBC Information Systems students, Pavithra Gottipati, Andrew Meiller, and Sakshi Jaju teamed up in IS 636 – Structured Systems Analysis and Design, taught by IS Professor Lei Zhang, to... https://informationsystems.umbc.edu/building-an-ai-chatbot-for-myumbc/ https://beta.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/157004/guest@my.umbc.edu/115ec78ba7a028832673350acb007ee2/api/pixel ai chatbot information-systems llm project student umbc UMBC AI https://beta.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779 UMBC AI https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/157/004/75ae3b25e1b25479329459f776b15bdb/xxlarge.jpg?1772291303 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/157/004/75ae3b25e1b25479329459f776b15bdb/xlarge.jpg?1772291303 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/157/004/75ae3b25e1b25479329459f776b15bdb/large.jpg?1772291303 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/157/004/75ae3b25e1b25479329459f776b15bdb/medium.jpg?1772291303 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/157/004/75ae3b25e1b25479329459f776b15bdb/small.jpg?1772291303 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/157/004/75ae3b25e1b25479329459f776b15bdb/xsmall.jpg?1772291303 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/157/004/75ae3b25e1b25479329459f776b15bdb/xxsmall.jpg?1772291303 Prof jaju and 3 IS grad students 2 0 true Sat, 28 Feb 2026 11:06:52 -0500 Sun, 01 Mar 2026 18:11:02 -0500 Participate in an online research study of how users interact with an AI chatbot

We are conducting a research study to explore how users interact with AI. Use an AI chatbot to answer 3 quiz questions! Here is the study link: https://llm-frontend-9fnt.onrender.com/signup

Who can participate? You must be

  1. 18 years or older 

  2. Fluent in English

  3. Able to access to a laptop or desktop computer and a stable internet connection

  4. Have a basic understanding of how to use an AI Chatbot (e.g., ChatGPT).

What will I do? 

This task will be completed remotely online and will take 20 minutes or less. You will use an LLM chatbot called Aletheia to answer three on-screen questions and complete a brief survey about your experience.

What will I get? 

You will be entered into a raffle for a $50 Amazon gift card. 

If you would like to learn more or have any questions, please contact 

Chielota Uma at cuma1@umbc.edu or  Dr. Shimei Pan at  shimei@umbc.edu

Thank you for considering helping us with our research! Your time is greatly appreciated.


]]> We are conducting a research study to explore how users interact with AI. Use an AI chatbot to answer 3 quiz questions! Here is the study link: https://llm-frontend-9fnt.onrender.com/signup Who... https://beta.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/153732/guest@my.umbc.edu/3015e0bf238af5e537206f5dbc94bb70/api/pixel chatbot llm quiz research study UMBC AI https://beta.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779 UMBC AI https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/732/d1f07c636aa8adacc29b647900cf4fa2/xxlarge.jpg?1761002005 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/732/d1f07c636aa8adacc29b647900cf4fa2/xlarge.jpg?1761002005 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/732/d1f07c636aa8adacc29b647900cf4fa2/large.jpg?1761002005 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/732/d1f07c636aa8adacc29b647900cf4fa2/medium.jpg?1761002005 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/732/d1f07c636aa8adacc29b647900cf4fa2/small.jpg?1761002005 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/732/d1f07c636aa8adacc29b647900cf4fa2/xsmall.jpg?1761002005 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/732/d1f07c636aa8adacc29b647900cf4fa2/xxsmall.jpg?1761002005 online survey with bot 0 0 true Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:40:20 -0400 Mon, 20 Oct 2025 19:14:10 -0400 Grok’s ‘white genocide’ responses show how generative AI can be weaponized UMBC faculty James Foulds, Phil Feldman, and Shimei Pan published a article in The Conversation on the recent problem where xAI’s Grok chatbot had repeatedly mentioned “white genocide” in South Africa when responding to unrelated queries. They explain how this happened and what can be done in the future to prevent such problems.

Read their article on UMBC here.
]]> UMBC faculty James Foulds, Phil Feldman, and Shimei Pan published a article in The Conversation on the recent problem where xAI’s Grok chatbot had repeatedly mentioned “white genocide” in South... https://umbc.edu/stories/groks-white-genocide-responses-show-how-generative-ai-can-be-weaponized/ https://beta.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/150751/guest@my.umbc.edu/b90d42c7c6fe3595e9ced64b504c1312/api/pixel chatbot grok llm UMBC AI https://beta.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779 UMBC AI https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/150/751/6cd26d5c5c413f630d23f8061ff9d663/xxlarge.jpg?1750536896 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/150/751/6cd26d5c5c413f630d23f8061ff9d663/xlarge.jpg?1750536896 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/150/751/6cd26d5c5c413f630d23f8061ff9d663/large.jpg?1750536896 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/150/751/6cd26d5c5c413f630d23f8061ff9d663/medium.jpg?1750536896 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/150/751/6cd26d5c5c413f630d23f8061ff9d663/small.jpg?1750536896 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/150/751/6cd26d5c5c413f630d23f8061ff9d663/xsmall.jpg?1750536896 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/150/751/6cd26d5c5c413f630d23f8061ff9d663/xxsmall.jpg?1750536896 grok image 0 0 true Sat, 21 Jun 2025 16:31:38 -0400 World's first chatbot restored on the world's first time-sharing system Original ELIZA code runs in CTSS emulator on Linux/MacOS

MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA in 1966 partly to demonstrate how easy it was to convince people that a computer was intelligent. His original MAD-SLIP version of ELIZA, usually considered the world's first chatbot, is running again on its native platform for the first time in nearly 60 years. Weizenbaum's original CACM paper, ELIZA — A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine, is available online.

This historic breakthrough was accomplished by a team of researchers (Rupert Lane, Anthony Hay, Arthur Schwarz, and Jeff Shrager) who successfully restored ELIZA to operation on a reconstructed version of MIT's Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), running on an emulated IBM 7094. You can download the code from this GitHub repository and run it on most Linux or MacOS systems.

See this blog post describing the effort to get the original ELIZA version running and a video of the reanimated ELIZA. Read more about ELIZA on the Genealogy of ELIZA site. You can also talk to ELIZA using a version of Weizenbaum's script via a JavaScript adaptation of the original code by Anthony Hay.

UMBC Center for AI ]]> MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA in 1966 partly to demonstrate how easy it was to convince people that a computer was intelligent. His original MAD-SLIP version of ELIZA, usually... https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/blog/eliza-reanimated https://beta.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/146418/guest@my.umbc.edu/804dc2b41c3501a3eb7e9d16457508b2/api/pixel ai chatbot eliza history UMBC AI https://beta.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779 UMBC AI 0 0 true Sat, 28 Dec 2024 12:16:18 -0500 Sat, 28 Dec 2024 12:59:09 -0500 AI Lunchbox: generative AI and writing code, 12-1pm ET 3/28 How new AI systems can help software engineers & programmers
The UMBC Training Centers Center for Applied AI LunchBox Series will hold a online session 12-1 pm ET on Thursday, March 28 on using generative AI systems and writing software code. Liam Echlin will demonstrate some of the top coding AI tools and offer tips on how to leverage them for speed and accuracy when writing code.

New generative AI systems can enhance software design and programming by breaking down approaches and automating code and comment generation, significantly reducing development time and effort. They can also provide recommendations for code optimization and bug fixes, improving code quality and performance. These systems can also help in learning new programming languages or frameworks by giving examples and assisting with syntax and best practices.

Register for this free session in the AI Lunchbox series here and get a link to the Zoom session.

]]> The UMBC Training Centers Center for Applied AI LunchBox Series will hold a online session 12-1 pm ET on Thursday, March 28 on using generative AI systems and writing software code. Liam... https://c4a.ai/?utm_campaign=AI&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=299951184&utm_content=299951184&utm_source=hs_email#lb06 https://beta.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/140226/guest@my.umbc.edu/d60882006eea312cecd7ab9051d938b8/api/pixel ai chatbot code programming software UMBC AI https://beta.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779 UMBC AI Center 0 0 true Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:27:27 -0400