All papers published in 2022 in Applied Sciences (ISSN: 2076-3417) were considered for this award. After a thorough evaluation of the originality and significance of the papers, citations, and downloads, the winner was selected:

“Educational AI Chatbots for Content and Language Integrated Learning”
by Kleopatra Mageira, Dimitra Pittou, Andreas Papasalouros, Konstantinos Kotis, Paraskevi Zangogianni and Athanasios Daradoumis
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(7), 3239; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12073239

The winners will receive CHF 500 and a chance to publish a paper free of charge after peer review in Applied Sciences in 2024.

Author names: Kleopatra Mageira, Dimitra Pittou, Andreas Papasalouros, Konstantinos Kotis, Paraskevi Zangogianni and Athanasios Daradoumis
Affiliation: University of the Aegean, Greece
Research Interests: AI chatbots; CMS; cultural informatics; digital culture; IoT; knowledge representation; linked data; semantic trajectories; semantic web; web apps

The following is a short interview with the correspondence author Dr. Konstantinos Kotis:

1. Congratulations on winning the 2022 Best Paper Award! Could you briefly introduce yourself and the main content of the winning paper to our readers?

My name is Konstantinos Kotis and I am a tenure track associate professor at the University of the Aegean, Dept. of Cultural Informatics and Communication, Intelligent Systems Lab, Greece. My research interests include knowledge engineering, semantic web technologies, semantic data management, the semantic web of things, and KG-based conversational AI (chatbots). I have published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences (Google Scholar h-index 22, citations>2200) and served as a reviewer and PC member for several journals and conference events. I have also contributed to several national and European projects, holding different roles/positions. For more, please visit http://i-lab.aegean.gr/kotis.

The main content of the winning paper is a report of an educational chatbot, designed to support content- and language-integrated learning, specifically, English and French language with cultural content learning.

2. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to submit your paper? What benefits do you think authors can gain when publishing their articles in Applied Sciences?

It has a high impact and quality and an interdisciplinary character, along with fast publishing.

3. What is your current research and why did you choose this field?

My current related research is about Large Language Models (LLMs) and chatbots, specifically how to use LLMs to automatically create dialogues from structured content, e.g., from LLM-generated Knowledge Graphs (KGs).

4. Which research topics do you think will be of particular interest to the research community in the coming years?

Large Language Models (LLMs), Robotics, AI in general (both generative and conversational AI). Neurosymbolic AI will be also developed fast and be at the forefront of future research.

5. Have you ever encountered any difficulties conducting research and how did you overcome them?

High publication fees in open access journals. Waivers are one way around this issue, grants are another.

6. Do you have any advice for aspiring young researchers looking to make a meaningful impact in their respective fields?

Always keep trying, do not quit, no matter what. Eventually, the effort will be rewarded.

7. Applied Sciences is an open access journal. How do you think open access impacts the authors?

Significantly, since results are distributed fast, making ‘things’ move faster!

8. As the winner of this award, is there something you want to express or someone you wish to thank most?

This award signifies the teamwork of the academic community, especially when this involves students and researchers at different levels and backgrounds. I would like to personally thank my postgraduate and Ph.D. students (Dimitra, Kleopatra, Paraskevi) for their persistent contributions and my colleauges (Andreas and Thanasis) for their key involvement and advice towards achieving this milestone.

9. Do you have any suggestions for our journal as to how we could further support researchers and the academic community?

• Continous update of editors’ and reviewers’ lists of academics of high impact (h-index) or/and fame;
• Provide more awards (e.g., returning open access fees to authors after winning the prize).