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Project Conversational Agents

Course

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2025-2026/XB_0101

Course Objective

Develop a conversational agent by developing a simple ontology for a knowledge base for the cooking domain which enables the agent to reason about recipes (Applying knowledge and understanding)Apply and understand conversation design patterns (Applying knowledge and understanding)Design and implement visual support for different stages in the conversation (Applying knowledge and understanding)Evaluate a prototype conversational agent for the cooking domain (Making judgments)Plan and organize work together in a project group using appropriate tools (Applying knowledge and understanding)

Course Content

Students learn how to develop a cognitive dialogue agent that uses Google's DialogFlow and builds on the natural conversation framework of Robert Moore. Groups will collaborate todevelop a conversational agent for the cooking domain, with a focus on the recipe selection task in this domain. They will design and implement domain knowledge, conversational patterns, natural language understanding and visuals. The agent will be a recipe recommendation assistant with visual support that supports the user to find a suitable cooking recipe.

Teaching Methods

Lectures, lab sessions (with computer/ laptops). Attendance at labs is obligatory. Students will work in groups of 6.

Method of Assessment

The grade is based on the quality of the basic conversational agent (30%), the quality and originality of extensions to the basic agent (30%) and the written report (30%). In addition, students are required to complete an exam that assesses their understanding of course content and their ability to evaluate conversational agents (10%). The exam will be one hour long and proctored by TAs. Each component needs to be at least graded with a 5.5 or higher to pass this course. There are no resit options for the project work, report and exam.

Literature

Conversational UX Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Natural Conversation Framework Robert J Moore en Raphael Arar | 29 mei 2019 ISBN-10: 1450363024 ISBN-13: 978-1450363020 A cognitive agent programming guide (online)Learn Prolog Now! (online)Github tutorial (online)Bootstrap tutorial (online)Dialogflow tutorial (online)Natural language understanding models (online)

Target Audience

Bachelor Artificial Intelligence

Recommended background knowledge

You should have completed Multi-Agent Systems (XB_0024)
Academic year1/09/2531/08/26
Course level6.00 EC

Language of Tuition

  • English

Study type

  • Bachelor