How AI Can Help Organisations Manage Their Own Knowledge

• In Event: Using AI to Improve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy

Proposal

IDInsight has been exploring the potential use of AI in helping teachers with knowledge management. From our experience in the space of healthcare, it is possible to make adaptations of the existing tool to education.

We recently deployed a WhatsApp-based question answering service that responds to health questions from new and expecting mothers in South Africa. The AI-powered plug-in, called “Ask-A-Question” or “AAQ” is an algorithm that matches a question, in free-form text, to stored FAQ content using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. As such, users do not have to navigate through many menus to access related questions and answers. Instead, they can type in queries, and the algorithm matches this with pre-filled answers.

An alpha version of the AAQ approach was previously deployed for a COVID-19 hotline in 2021 and for the maternal health helpline, it has already shown promising results in a test setting. Currently, it is serving 450 thousand active users.

We are planning for the algorithm’s use to be applied to the education setting, particularly in the area of knowledge management. Improving how teachers access and use available resources can help teachers teach better, and help ensuring students gain foundational literacy and numeracy.

From working with teachers and schools, we identified the following problems. Firstly, while there is a lot of information and resources available to teachers, teachers face challenges in sifting through all the contents to find the right resources at the right time. Secondly, Ministries of Education in many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) do not have an effective channel to engage with teachers. To mitigate this, they need to connect over a platform where teachers are already present.

A similar solution to AAQ for teachers would allow them to seek support on lesson plans, pedagogy best practices, and links to other teaching resources. Using topic modelling, we can also learn about the key areas that teachers struggle with and create new materials to address them. Questions can be asked in their local language.

This platform would also allow Ministries of Education to directly engage with their teaching workforce. They could send notifications - for example notifications and updates, and teaching tips - and do quick surveys to understand their challenges better.

Author

• Zia Khan, IDinsight