Intelligent Agents

iCollege has a tool called Intelligent Agents that can be used to automate communications, reminders, or send “nudges” to students.  The Intelligent Agent Tool uses criteria set by the instructor to send a mail message (using iCollege Mail) to each student who meets the specified criteria. 

Examples of Intelligent Agent criteria include:

• 5 or more days since accessing the course
• No assignment submission
• Scoring less than 70% on a quiz

These criteria could be used to trigger a message such as:

• Dear {firstname}, I noticed that you haven’t been online in a few days.  Is everything alright?  Do you need assistance with the course?
• Dear {firstname}, The due date for the essay is approaching.  Have you visited the writing lab to review your draft?
• Dear {firstname}, Before the next quiz, I want to be sure that you know about some resources that can help you…

You can access the intelligent agents tool by selecting Course Tools–>Course Admin from the course navigation bar.  The Intelligent Agents link is located under the Communications heading. To learn about intelligent agents, view the videos below.

Intelligent agents can be scheduled to run automatically. You can set the frequency, as well as the time period you want the intelligent agent to run. To learn how to view and edit the schedule of an intelligent agent, view the video below.

Once an intelligent agent has been created, you can perform a practice run to determine who will be identified without sending a message. To learn how to perform a practice run of an intelligent agent, view the video below.

If your intelligent agent is not set up to run on a schedule, you will need to run it manually every time you want the agent to check for students who meet the criteria set. To learn how to run an intelligent agent manually, view the video below.

You have the ability to delete and restore intelligent agents. To learn more, view the video below.

Using Replacement Strings

Replacement strings allow you to personalize course content and messages that you send to students. For example, a replacement string can be used to insert a student’s name at the beginning of a message.

To learn how to use replacement strings, view the video below.