Cloud-based ecosystem proposal for applying an intelligent virtual assistant in online education

Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVA) or advanced chatbots are bringing many benefits in services. Achieving the robot-man interaction in an effective and affective way is not an easy task. However, it is possible to arrive at a model with the existing technological advances to create this expected interaction. In education, specifically in online learning, there are problems with student retention and learning effectiveness. Considering the problems presented, it is possible to use the great potential of IV As to support students and teachers during these courses and avoid some usual challenges. There are some platforms and services in the cloud with tools ready for the development of these IV As. Hence, this article aims to design a modular ecosystem for an IVA applied in education. Also, do a comparative study on platforms and services in the cloud: Amazon Web Service, Google, and Microsoft. The objective is to select the most complete and feasible according to our needs: Developing and hosting an IVA that allows interaction via text and user voice. As a result, the Microsoft service was selected. With the proposal of infrastructures, technologies, artificial intelligence elements, and technical direction was developed a modular ecosystem.