# Conversation-Based School Building Inspection Support System
###### Abstract  
A conversation-based system is proposed for supporting assessors in performing existing school building inspections. School building safety is a pressing issue; however, some difficulties in the overall process require solutions or improvements, including the complexity of building inspection tasks, the restrictions posed by the paperwork process, and the ineffectiveness of the management of existing school building inspections. In this study, we developed a conversation-based building inspection support system to reduce such problems, with the proposed system notifying and guiding assessors to complete building inspections, combined with a dashboard for managers to consume reports to determine whether further assessments or retrofits are required. The process of school building inspections was digitalized, with a chatbot implemented that features notifications either according to a routine inspection schedule or postseismic events, a conversation-based interface for guiding nonprofessional assessors, the integration of intuitive activation of inspections after receiving notifications, the use of multimedia to show damage directly without the possibility of mistakes, and data visualization for supporting managerial decision-making to enhance the quality and accuracy of budget allocation. Keywords: conversation-based; building inspection; computer-aided maintenance; chatbot; conversational agent; data visualization; decision support; human-computer interaction +
Footnote †: journal: Medical  
(NCREE) proposed a three-stage strategy for the seismic evaluation and retrofit of school buildings [3]. In addition, the Ministry of Education, in cooperation with NCREE, has implemented a program for improving the seismic performance of schools since 2009, and thus far has retrofitted over 7900 buildings for a higher seismic resistance [4]. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education also requisitioned public schools to establish \"safety inspection task forces\" in 2009 [5]. The task forces aim to conduct the building maintenance, inspect the campus safety planning--which includes safety equipment and facilities--and update the records on required retrofitting. Beyond regular inspections, additional inspections are also required, especially after hazards such as earthquakes and typhoons. The members of the task force of each school include the principal, the director of general affairs, and other staff of the school. The members are responsible for initial inspections, and they determine whether further inspections by professional engineers are required based on the initial results. After they submit the inspection reports to the oversight authority, managers of the oversight authority determine budget and resource allocations for school building retrofits. Despite the results produced in the retrofit process, some difficulties in the overall process require solutions or improvements. First, the number and spatial complexity of school buildings complicate the inspections for different buildings. The current standard evaluation covers at least twenty checkpoints, targeting different parts of the campus. Some of the checkpoints are for facilities in individual classrooms, while others may be for corridors in different stories or for the safety planning of the entire campus. Assessors have to repeat the inspections on different buildings and adjust the required checkpoints case by case. Second, the paperwork is in paper form, thus requiring hard copies and restricting the form of inspection reports and potential advanced usages. Multimedia such as images and videos provide abundant information about building damage; however, they cannot be simply attached to hard-copy reports. Furthermore, numerous paper reports without summarization hinder managers from grasping the potential damage situation. Third, the members of safety inspection task forces often do not have expertise in structural or civil engineering.