# Jill Watson: A Virtual Teaching Assistant powered by ChatGPT

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.11070 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11070/

## Key facts

- Cited by 24 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 28 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 May 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [Dense Passage Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04906/) (2020)
- [Survey of Hallucination in Natural Language Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03629/) (2022)
- [MS MARCO: A Human Generated MAchine Reading COmprehension Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.09268/) (2016)
- [HuggingGPT: Solving AI Tasks with ChatGPT and its Friends in Hugging Face](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17580/) (2023)
- [A Holistic Approach to Undesired Content Detection in the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.03274/) (2022)
- [A New Generation of Perspective API: Efficient Multilingual Character-level Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.11176/) (2022)
- [The Design and Implementation of XiaoIce, an Empathetic Social Chatbot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08989/) (2018)
- [A Survey on Retrieval-Augmented Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.01110/) (2022)
- [A Dataset for Document Grounded Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.07358/) (2018)
- [Re2G: Retrieve, Rerank, Generate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.06300/) (2022)
- [Retrieve and Refine: Improved Sequence Generation Models For Dialogue](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.04776/) (2018)
- [WikiChat: Stopping the Hallucination of Large Language Model Chatbots by Few-Shot Grounding on Wikipedia](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14292/) (2023)
- [Neural Machine Translation with Monolingual Translation Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.11269/) (2021)
- [The Web Is Your Oyster - Knowledge-Intensive NLP against a Very Large Web Corpus](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09924/) (2021)
- [A Controllable Model of Grounded Response Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00613/) (2020)
- [A Deep Reinforcement Learning Chatbot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.02349/) (2017)
- [Conversing by Reading: Contentful Neural Conversation with On-demand Machine Reading](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02738/) (2019)
- [RetGen: A Joint framework for Retrieval and Grounded Text Generation Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06597/) (2021)
- [Comprehensive Assessment of Toxicity in ChatGPT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14685/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [The StudyChat Dataset: Analyzing Student Dialogues With ChatGPT in an Artificial Intelligence Course](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07928/) (2025)
- [AI-Powered Math Tutoring: Platform for Personalized and Adaptive Education](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.12484/) (2025)
- [How Do Students Interact with an LLM-powered Virtual Teaching Assistant in Different Educational Settings?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17429/) (2024)
- [A4L: An Architecture for AI-Augmented Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.06314/) (2025)
- [MuDoC: An Interactive Multimodal Document-grounded Conversational AI System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09843/) (2025)
- [Towards a Multimodal Document-grounded Conversational AI System for Education](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13884/) (2025)
- [A Large-Scale Real-World Evaluation of LLM-Based Virtual Teaching Assistant](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.17363/) (2025)
- [Securing Educational LLMs: A Generalised Taxonomy of Attacks on LLMs and DREAD Risk Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08629/) (2025)
- [Enhanced Question-Answering for Skill-based learning using Knowledge-based AI and Generative AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.07463/) (2025)
- [INSIGHT: Bridging the Student-Teacher Gap in Times of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17677/) (2025)
- [The promise and limits of LLMs in constructing proofs and hints for logic problems in intelligent tutoring systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.04736/) (2025)
- [Bringing Pedagogy into Focus: Evaluating Virtual Teaching Assistants' Question-Answering in Asynchronous Learning Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.17961/) (2025)
- [LLM Prompt Evaluation for Educational Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.16134/) (2026)
- [Guidelines for Designing AI Technologies to Support Adult Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.04616/) (2026)
- [Towards Just-in-Time Adaptive Feedback: Enhancing Student Learning via Knowledge-Grounded LLM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.26405/) (2026)
- [Surfacing Isolated Learners with Outcome-Independent Mediation of Feedback between Teachers and Students Using AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29240/) (2026)
- [Learner and Instructor Needs in AI-Supported Programming Learning Tools: Design Implications for Features and Adaptive Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.00144/) (2025)
- [SSRLBot: Designing and Developing a Large Language Model-based Agent using Socially Shared Regulated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.00945/) (2025)
- [Impact of Multimodal and Conversational AI on Learning Outcomes and Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02221/) (2026)
- [ACE-TA: An Agentic Teaching Assistant for Grounded Q&A, Quiz Generation, and Code Tutoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09572/) (2026)
- [Agentic AI Ecosystems in Higher Education: A Perspective on AI Agents to Emerging Inclusive, Agentic Multi-Agent AI Framework for Learning, Teaching and Institutional Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14266/) (2026)
- [Learning Engagement Assistant (LEA): Cross-Course Scalability and Classroom Evaluation of an Agentic AI Tutoring System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.13370/) (2026)
- [Cite or Decline: A Strict Course-Grounded Chatbot for STEM Lecture Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.01846/) (2026)
- [A Prompt-Engineering Approach to Develop Scalable, Flexible, and Real-Time Hybrid Micro-Level Personalization in a General Purpose AI Teaching Assistant](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.03402/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Conversational AI agents often require extensive datasets for training that are not publicly released, are limited to social chit-chat or handling a specific domain, and may not be easily extended to accommodate the latest advances in AI technologies. This paper introduces Jill Watson, a conversational Virtual Teaching Assistant (VTA) leveraging the capabilities of ChatGPT. Jill Watson based on ChatGPT requires no prior training and uses a modular design to allow the integration of new APIs using a skill-based architecture inspired by XiaoIce. Jill Watson is also well-suited for intelligent textbooks as it can process and converse using multiple large documents. We exclusively utilize publicly available resources for reproducibility and extensibility. Comparative analysis shows that our system outperforms the legacy knowledge-based Jill Watson as well as the OpenAI Assistants service. We employ many safety measures that reduce instances of hallucinations and toxicity. The paper also includes real-world examples from a classroom setting that demonstrate different features of Jill Watson and its effectiveness.