What is Ask Alma (bwGPT)?
Ask Alma (bwGPT) is an AI-based chatbot platform that is available to all employees and students at Pforzheim University via Moodle. The development of Ask Alma was funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg and is now operated by the company KERSTA GmbH (further information: https://kersta.de/). You can ask Ask Alma a question, give an instruction, or specify a specific topic, and bwGPT will respond accordingly. The chatbot is designed to provide information, complete tasks, or simply have a conversation. Use bwGPT by formulating your queries clearly and concisely to achieve the best possible results.

Students and employees of Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences can benefit Ask Alma via Moodle.

A key feature of Ask Alma is the ability to create course-related assistants that help students better understand and navigate their courses directly from Moodle. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to upload documents to Ask Alma, on the basis of which the assistant gives appropriate answers when students ask corresponding questions.

How it works

1. Access via Moodle

• Teachers access Ask Alma directly from a Moodle course. To do this, they must first "activate edit mode". They then select "Add activity or material" in the desired course and add the activity "External tool". Select Ask Alma there. After saving, the tool appears in the course and can be clicked on by the teachers.
• As soon as the course is linked to Ask Alma, it appears in the Ask Alma sidebar - both for the teacher and for students who have opened the tool at least once via Moodle.

2. Create a course assistant

Teachers can:

• give the assistant a name (e.g. "exam helper", "AI tool guide")
• formulate instructions (e.g. what the assistant should do and how it should behave)
• Upload course-relevant documents (e.g. syllabus, bibliography, examination rules)

3. Use by students

• Students see the assistant in their Ask Alma sidebar after they have started it once via Moodle.
• They can ask questions about course content, deadlines, tools or regulations.
• However, they cannot edit or delete assistants or access materials that are only intended for teachers.

4. Management of assistants

• Teachers can change the name, instructions or uploaded documents at any time.
• Assistants (and entire course entries) can be deleted - all associated chats and files are removed. To delete an assistant, teachers can select the relevant course in the menu, click on the assistant, click on the three dots and then select the "Delete" option.

Best Practices

• Formulate clear and precise instructions.
• Upload only relevant documents (avoid conflicting versions).
• Create separate wizards for different purposes (e.g. content, tools, checks).

Example use cases

• "Syllabus assistant": Answers common questions about course structure, assessment and timetable.
• "Exam assistant": Provides information on exam formats, rules and preparation.
• "AI tool helper": Explains how to use Moodle or external AI tools such as ChatGPT or DeepL

If you have any questions regarding the use of Ask Alma (bwGPT) or the Course Assistant, please feel free to contact Dr. Filiz Gündüz Cav at
filiz.guenduezcav(at)hs-pforzheim(dot)de.