3 Questions about ELIAS – project in the «DSI Infrastructures & Labs» series
DSI Infrastructures & Labs are shareable infrastructures or structural vessels for creating collaborative research environments related to digital transformation. Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch briefly introduces ELIAS, one of the projects in this series.
What was the main idea behind the ELIAS project?
With ELIAS, we want to make interviews more scalable and less biased by using a friendly, human-like interview agent to talk with people, supported by another smart coding agent that helps sort and understand the conversations. As an added benefit, the anonymous data collected via ELIAS also helps improve AI models, especially for sensitive topics that are rarely available publicly.
How does ELIAS change the way interviews are conducted and evaluated?
ELIAS fills the space between detailed human-led interviews and low-cost online surveys. The interview agent works in close collaboration with a human-supervised coding agent: once enough insights are gathered for a question, the coding agent informs the interview agent, who then adjusts the interview so that not everyone has to answer the question. With this dynamic agentic collaboration, we aim to use interview time and effort more carefully.
Where do you see ELIAS's greatest potential?
ELIAS enables low-threshold interviews through an accessible, friendly, and non-judgmental interview agent. This approach can help reach and engage diverse and vulnerable individuals who often avoid research studies, encouraging greater openness about sensitive topics and giving researchers new insights for more informed and impactful decisions.
All projects of the series «DSI Infrastructures & Labs» can be found here.
Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch, Professor for Digital Health Interventions, Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care, University of Zurich; Co-Director, School of Medicine, University of St.Gallen & Co-Chair Centre for Digital Health Interventions, University of Zurich, University of St.Gallen and ETH Zurich.