The HYBOT project addressed the growing need for digital transformation and innovative post-pandemic learning approaches in higher education, equipping educators with essential tools and competencies to modernise their teaching practices. Specifically, the project aimed to empower HEI teachers, particularly those primarily working in face-to-face learning environments, to design and implement hybrid teaching scenarios enhanced by chatbots. Its objectives were: - To enhance teachers' skills in designing and implementing hybrid teaching scenarios, - To enable teachers to create and deploy chatbots within hybrid educational settings, and - To improve learners' experiences in chatbot-supported hybrid teaching environments. The project sought to bridge pedagogical and technological gaps, fostering more interactive and personalised learning opportunities in post-pandemic educational contexts.
The HYBOT project addressed the challenges of post-pandemic teaching at HEIs and the increasing need for digital transformation in higher education. The pandemic significantly reshaped traditional universities, accelerating the adoption of blended teaching methods that combine face-to-face (F2F) and online learning. Hybrid teaching (HT) emerged as a recent approach defined by synchronous sessions where instructors simultaneously engage with on-campus and online students. This setting bridges physical and digital learning environments, enabling diverse teaching scenarios to meet evolving educational needs in the post-COVID era. However, HT demands advanced pedagogical skills to manage these dual settings effectively. Many educators lacked the resources, training, and expertise to design robust HT scenarios. Chatbots, or virtual conversational assistants, were identified as promising digital tools for enhancing interactivity, personalisation, and feedback in hybrid settings. Despite their potential, the integration of chatbots in HE remained limited, highlighting the urgent need for teacher training and support materials to facilitate their adoption in HT scenarios and in higher education more broadly.