Chatbot to Provide Initial Assistance to Erasmus Students in Case of Emergency

Erasmus students spend part of their academic stage in a foreign country, which enriches their experience significantly. During the second semester of the 2019–20 academic year and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students found themselves isolated and confined in a country that was not their own. Students lived with uncertainty and many doubts about what they could and could not do, while the Erasmus offices of the host universities could not cope with the many and varied issues. This paper proposes a contingency solution for an efficient communication with those students and the Erasmus offices based on a chatbot that serves as the first layer of attention to the Erasmus student facing an emergency. The chatbot has been developed within an Erasmus project with the participation of six European universities, and the first experiences gathered from its use have been very positive.