Create KI-Course-Assistants for Students

ASKALMA 10-002

What you need to know

With an AI course assistant, you can provide your students with AI support tailored to your module component directly within FELIX. The assistant can, for example, help them understand module content, explain terms and answer questions about the materials provided.

Please note the following:
Materials: Only upload materials for which you hold the necessary rights. Text-based files such as PDFs are particularly suitable.
Set the focus: You can configure the assistant to use only the materials you have provided.
Test in advance: Test the assistant using typical questions from your students and adjust the content or instructions if necessary.
Raise students’ awareness: Make it clear that AI can make mistakes and that your students should contact you at any time if they are unsure.

The Helpcard below describes how to create a course-specific AI assistant tailored to your requirements.
To use an AI assistant in your FELIX course, you must first import Ask Alma into your course via a course block (LTI module).

What you have to do

  1. Importing Ask Alma: Under ‘Administration’, open the course editor for the relevant course and click on ‘Import course block’ at the top.
    In the dialogue box that opens, select the ‘Search form’ tab and search for ‘Ask Alma’ in the search field.
    Select the “Ask Alma” entry and click “Next”.
    In the next step, enable the “Ask Alma” structural element, click “Next” twice and then click “Finish”.
    Once the import is complete, you can customise the course elements to suit your needs.
    Move it to the desired location within the course and rename it if necessary (e.g. ‘AI support’ and ‘AI assistant’).
    Tip: Leave the “Zu beachten” page, which appears before the chatbot, in place as information for your students.

    • In addition to the ‘Ask Alma’ module (‘About the chatbot’), the ‘Zu beachten’ page will also be imported into your course as an information page for your students.

  2. Publish changes: Click on the red cross (top right) to close the course editor. Select the ‘Publish automatically’ option to apply the changes to the course view. 

    • The new section will only appear in the course view once it has been published.

  3. Open Ask Alma: Open Ask Alma by clicking on ‘Go to chatbot’ in the course menu (on the left) within the imported structural element, and then selecting ‘Start LTI learning module’.

    • Your personalised “Ask Alma” view will open. 

    • If you have not yet established a course assistant for this course, the message ‘New course “Title” detected’ will appear, informing you that no assistant has yet been established.

  4. Create an area for teaching assistants: Click on ‘Create area for teaching assistants’.

    • The “Create new content” section opens.

  5. Create an assistant: Under ‘Create new content’, click on ‘+Assistant’.

    • The configuration options for training your course assistant will open.

    • There are two modes available for creating your course assistant:

      (1) ‘Generate’ (recommended and set by default):
      Ask Alma helps you create the AI assistant. Your instructions (meta-prompt) and the uploaded materials are automatically coordinated.

      (2) ‘Manual’:
      You formulate the instructions for the assistant yourself and define them precisely. The manual mode is particularly suitable for experienced users who wish to take control of the assistant themselves, consciously and in detail.

    • Below, you will find a suggested configuration for your AI assistant.
      Copy the “Suggested text” into the “+Your message” field in the “Generate” tab in AskAlma and, if you wish, upload any additional materials.

      ---------------Suggested text-----------

      Title: AI Assistant

      Description (for students):
      This AI assistant helps you to understand and revise the content of this module component. It uses only the course materials provided. The answers are generated automatically and may contain errors. The official course materials are always binding.

      Instructions:
      You are an AI assistant designed to support students on an undergraduate module component entitled “xxxxx” at a University of Applied Sciences. The students are at an early stage of their studies and have little or no prior knowledge of the discipline covered. Your task is to help students understand the course content. Formulate your answers in a way that is encouraging and friendly, whilst remaining clear, factual and appropriate to the students’ level of knowledge.

      Please observe the following rules:

      • Base your answers exclusively on the documents provided.
      • Do not invent any content or add any information that is not contained in the materials.
      • Do not interpret the content beyond the information provided.
      • Where possible, cite the source within the provided documents on which your answer is based.
      • If questions are not related to the course content, politely point this out and reply with “Let’s stick to the topic”.

      Conclude each answer with the following note:
      ‘This answer was generated by an AI, and AIs can make mistakes. The documents provided in the module component are always binding. If in doubt, please contact your lecturer.’

    • Note on uploading files:
      Please ensure that you do not infringe the rights of third parties when uploading files. Only upload materials for which you hold the necessary rights of use. In particular, no copyright-protected texts, confidential documents or unauthorised images may be uploaded or processed by the AI service.

      In principle, all text-based file formats (e.g. PDF, TXT, PPTX) are equally suitable as sources of knowledge – provided they are genuine text documents and not mere screenshots or image-based PDFs. Tables may not always be interpreted unambiguously. To improve the reliability of the answers, converting them into continuous text may be helpful. Audio and video files cannot currently be processed or interpreted.

      Uploading files:
      In the ‘Manual’ tab, you can also upload files in the‘Files’ section by clicking the plus icon. If you want your AI assistant to refer exclusively to the uploaded files, tick the ‘Force file search on every query’ option below the instructions in the ‘Files’ section. In this case, other tools are automatically disabled and the assistant uses the file search for every query. This setting is automatically applied when using the configuration provided above in ‘Generate’ mode.

  6. Test the assistant: Test your AI assistant by simulating typical conversations in the preview pane (on the right). Think about the questions students might ask and have appropriate conversations with the assistant. If the assistant displays any undesirable behaviour, you can adjust and optimise the instructions accordingly.

  7. Finalising the course assistant: Once you are satisfied with your tests and have completed the configuration, click on ‘Create’ in the top right-hand corner. From this point onwards, the assistant will be available to your students. You can edit the assistant again at any time. It is also possible to use several assistants within a single course.

  8. Linking assistens to other courses or copying them to other courses:
    You can also link course assistants that you have created for one course to other courses, or copy them to other courses. To do this, click on the three-dot menu for the relevant assistant and select the ‘Copy’ or ‘Links’ option.
    In the window that opens, select the course to which you wish to copy the assistant and confirm by clicking ‘Confirm selection’.

    • When you copy a course assistant to another course, a separate assistant is created which is not linked to the original assistant. Changes to the original assistant’s configuration therefore do not affect the copy.

    • Note when copying a course for a new term:

      If you copy a course for a new term, the associated course assistants will not be automatically carried over. If you wish to continue using the assistent, you must copy it from the original course into the new course as described above.
       

Problems or questions?