G-Tech : Jurnal Teknologi Terapan
Vol 10 No 3 (2026): G-Tech, Vol. 10 No. 3 July 2026

Comparing FAQ-Based and Retrieval-Augmented Generation Chatbots for Academic Service Question Answering

Suherwin Suherwin (Universitas Pejuang Republik Indonesia, Indonesia)
Moh. Zainuddin (Asia Institute of Technology and Business Malang, Indonesia)
Rachmat Rachmat (Universitas Pejuang Republik Indonesia, Indonesia)



Article Info

Publish Date
04 Jul 2026

Abstract

Academic service units need question-answering systems that respond quickly while remaining aligned with institutional regulations. This study provides a controlled, deployment-oriented comparison of a lightweight FAQ chatbot and a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot for academic-service question answering. The novelty lies in evaluating both prototypes against the same version-controlled official-document scope, the same 60-question dataset, category-level service cases, paired statistical tests, inter-rater reliability, and RAGAS retrieval-quality metrics. The questions covered registration, KRS/KHS, schedules, tuition payment, thesis or final project, and administrative letters. Three validators assessed accuracy, relevance, response effectiveness, and response time using official documents as the reference standard. RAG achieved 88.33% accuracy, a mean relevance score of 4.48/5, and 86.67% response effectiveness; FAQ achieved 68.33%, 3.46/5, and 65.00%, respectively. Paired tests confirmed significant advantages for RAG in accuracy, relevance, and effectiveness, while FAQ was significantly faster (0.62 s vs 2.41 s). RAGAS evaluation showed context precision of 0.86, context recall of 0.82, faithfulness of 0.89, and answer relevancy of 0.91. The findings support a cautious hybrid strategy: FAQ for stable repetitive requests and RAG for contextual, document-dependent questions, subject to broader testing with live queries and stronger retrieval baselines.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

g-tech

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT Decision Sciences, Operations Research & Management Energy Engineering

Description

Jurnal G-Tech bertujuan untuk mempublikasikan hasil penelitian asli dan review hasil penelitian tentang teknologi dan terapan pada ruang lingkup keteknikan meliputi teknik mesin, teknik elektro, teknik informatika, sistem informasi, agroteknologi, ...