Higher education students often lack timely support, leading to disengagement and withdrawal. Nuubi addresses this by combining AI answers, peer help, and recognition for soft skills. Pilots show higher engagement than LMS forums and faster resolution times. Findings and implications will be presented.

Across higher education, completion remains a critical challenge. In the average class of 30, 12 students will not complete their degree within six years, most often because of a lack of timely support, outside challenges, or equity gaps. Minority students are disproportionately affected, with dropout rates nearly twice as high. In gateway courses such as Calculus I, 27 percent of students receive DFW grades, where small prerequisite gaps can snowball into disengagement and withdrawal. Students frequently need help at times when support is not available, such as evenings and weekends. Although all LMS platforms include help forums intended to address this, those forums are rarely used. Without timely answers, students get stuck, disengage, and may withdraw altogether. This cycle contributes to lower graduation rates and leaves fewer opportunities to practice communication and teamwork skills that 75 percent of employers identify as lacking in recent graduates.

Nuubi is a Q&A system designed to address these challenges by making timely support accessible and visible. It integrates directly with the LMS and provides a mobile app with push notifications, making it easy for students to stay engaged outside class hours and alongside busy schedules. An AI assistant delivers immediate answers drawn from foundational course information, while peers and faculty can expand and refine responses. The system also tracks participation, manages awards, and issues soft skill badges in areas such as communication, teamwork, and leadership that students can showcase to employers and recruiters.

One graduate-level data science course with 34 enrolled students provided a strong early pilot. Within the first two weeks, 27 students logged into Nuubi, and 16 of them became active participants. Together, they posted 28 original questions, wrote 49 replies, and exchanged 8 chat messages. Each post received 4.4 comments on average (median = 3), and the median time from post to last comment, treated as the time to resolution, was about 176 minutes (just under 3 hours). By comparison, prior studies show that students typically expect instructor responses to email within 24–48 hours, suggesting that Nuubi delivers substantially faster support. Five students also earned Leadership badges for starting posts that drew comments from peers, an early indicator of initiative and collaboration within the class. Participation was optional but encouraged, and this level of activity stands in contrast to LMS forums, where engagement is typically minimal unless required.

Nuubi demonstrates that timely, integrated support can significantly improve student engagement compared to traditional LMS forums. The leadership badges illustrate how online academic interactions can capture the initiative and teamwork that employers value most. At the same time, this case study reflects one online graduate data science course at a university with a residential campus, so findings may not generalize across other fields or institutional contexts. Other pilots with lower adoption will also be shared, along with lessons learned about integration, faculty onboarding, and student motivation. Future work will focus on expanding to additional disciplines, studying the role of non-active users who may still benefit from reading posts, and extending AI capabilities to handle classroom management tasks that free up instructor time.

Key takeaways include practical strategies for increasing student engagement and timely support, evidence of how AI-assisted Q&A systems can improve student success and reduce faculty workload, and insights into connecting classroom participation with workforce readiness through soft skill recognition. Conditions for successful adoption will also be highlighted, including the importance of LMS integration and faculty champions.

Kathryn Wifvat, Ph.D.

Founder/CEO at Nuubi