Chinese university uses AI to check class attendance rates and find the reasons behind absenteeism
- Early results have been positive, with attendance rates up in the two weeks since university adopted the system
- University says main goal is to find deeper reasons behind why students miss class and categorise them accordingly to build a database
For harassed teachers and university staff struggling to keep tabs on which students have attended class, a new artificial intelligence-enabled system in China may be just what they have been looking for.
A Chinese university in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, has rolled out a class attendance system that enables students to sign in with verification codes via their mobile phones and issue auto-reminders to those who fail to show up on time, along with a warning about the risks of skipping class.
Those who miss class receive the following message: “Hello, this is little AI, an intelligent voice assistant from the counsellors of Hangzhou Dianzi University. I notice you were absent from class today.” Any response from the student will be recorded and transcribed, for use by staff in a follow-up meeting with the student concerned, according to posts on the university homepage.
Over half of the courses at Hangzhou Dianzi University have adopted the smart attendance system, Hu Haibin, deputy director of the university students’ affairs office, told Beijing Youth Daily. “Before it would take teachers seven to eight minutes to make a roll-call, now it takes just 15 seconds,” he said.
Early results have been positive, with attendance rates up by 7 percentage points in the two weeks since the university adopted the system compared to the previous semester, according to the report.
