RPA-based Bots for Managing Online Learning Materials

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has seen a rise in digital learning materials being shared with students of all levels of education. Learning institutions usually provide a learning management system where all the notes, tutorial and example past year examination questions are provided for students to support their learning activities in courses throughout their studies. Students usually download the learning materials either as .zip or individual files in various file formats. The steps are repetitive for each registered course, therefore can be time consuming for students. Students also need to have a sense of appropriate file management skill in order to organize downloaded materials for easy access whenever necessary. When the number of courses grow throughout the years, improper files organization may result in loss of access or unidentifiable files in student machine or devices. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to address related challenges faced by students in managing the amount of learning materials provided through a learning management system or portal. A RPA-based bot was developed and integrated with a learning management system to accomplish the goals. The integration shows that RPA-based bots can minimize student’s effort in managing their learning materials efficiently.