Skip to content

Call for Proposals: Integrating AI into the CSXL Web Application

This semester in our software engineering course, you'll have the opportunity to enhance the CSXL web application by incorporating AI functionality using OpenAI's powerful language models (LLMs). Our goal is to make the XL app smarter, more user-friendly, and more engaging through thoughtful integration of AI.

What is the CSXL Web Application?

The CSXL web app, , currently helps you and other UNC CS students by:

  • Reserving coworking spaces (rooms and desks)
  • Managing tickets for course office hours
  • Providing a directory of student organizations
  • Allowing applications to become an undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA)

We are seeking proposals that creatively use AI to expand and enhance these existing functionalities—or propose entirely new features!

Project Ideas

The following suggestions illustrate possible areas for AI integration, but feel free to expand upon them or propose something completely new! The three provided ideas are arranged in relative order of difficulty and scope. We believe the first is the most straightforward idea, followed by the second, and finally the third (study buddy) is the broadest in scope.

1. AI-Enhanced Room and Desk Reservations

Imagine a conversational assistant integrated into the CSXL app that allows you to:

  • Check room or desk availability using natural language ("Are there pair programming rooms available tomorrow at noon?")
  • Manage or cancel reservations easily ("Cancel my reservation for today at 3 PM.")
  • Query real-time usage information ("Is my friend Joan at the XL right now?" or "How busy is it right now?")
  • Tracking of requests asked, along with success or failure in addressing the user's prompt, so that we can improve the feature over time.

What other intelligent reservation features can you envision?

2. Smarter Office Hours Ticket Support

AI could help students submit better, more detailed office-hour tickets by:

  • Checking ticket submissions to ensure clarity and detail ("Did the student provide enough information about their issue?") and giving instructors the ability to set guidelines the AI enforces
  • Automatically tagging or categorizing tickets for TAs to understand what is going on in the queue and improved data analysis
  • Generating reports for instructors / TAs that summarizing common issues over a specified timespan to better anticipate and address frequent problems

What other AI-driven improvements could help streamline office hours?

3. AI-Generated Practice Questions and Study Buddies

Create an AI-powered study helper that:

  • Generates practice questions tailored to specific course topics and learning objectives defined by instructors or TAs as a part of their CSXL course site
  • Allows students to rate or TAs to pre-screen questions, ensuring quality and relevance
  • Tracks which questions students have seen or struggled with, ensuring variety and personalized learning experiences

How else could AI facilitate collaborative learning or individual study?

4. Your Own Creative AI-Driven Feature

Don't feel limited! If you have an innovative idea on how AI could make the CSXL web app more useful, engaging, or intelligent, we encourage you to propose it. Feel free to think big and be creative, this is your chance to shape the future of the CSXL web application!