AI Assistant in Canvas | Staff Guide

The AI Assistant is an AI chatbot that works inside Canvas to help students get quick answers to their questions. It could help with things like finding exam dates, understanding deadlines, and supporting study and revision. It can also summarise these documents to support students in understanding their content.

The AI Assistant is built on a product called LearnWise, with local modifications made by LJMU. This was to significantly reduce the risk of students using it to bypass their own learning.

Why we are doing this

We want to see if it can reduce the number of simple, repetitive questions that staff receive by email, so they have more time for teaching and supporting students with complex issues. We also want to see if it can support student learning.

How it works

The AI Assistant will appear on the Canvas Course Menu. It will index all of the published resources on that course. Students and staff can then use it to locate information or create summaries. Tutors on the course can monitor its use through the menu link to understand how it is being used on their course.

What it doesn’t do

• It does not have access to the wider internet so it will only index and reference the content uploaded to that Canvas course.
• It cannot access some of the content held in particular areas of Canvas, such as:
  • The reading list
  • Videos in Panopto
  • Publisher content as Pearsons or McGraw Hill

Staff have control - you choose whether to use LearnWise in your courses.