Course materials

For educators

A course’s materials are held in modules, shown in the sidebar of the library tab. Materials arrive either from an LMS sync or by direct upload.

Modules

Create a module with the + control beside the Modules heading, then name it inline.

Modules do not nest. A course is a flat list of modules, each holding its own materials.

Selecting a module lists what it holds. Each item shows its name, its AI-written summary once processing has finished, and, where processing failed, a failure notice in its place.

A module named Week 3 - Turbulence listing four items: an exercise called The First Law reading 1 question, from Lecture 1 — The First Law.pdf; a processed Master thesis with an AI-written summary about a eutectic freeze crystallization reactor; a second Master thesis showing a red failure notice reading Failed to upload document, the Alexandria Engineering team has been notified; and a worksheet called Problem Set 1 with its summary and two links reading 1 interactive exercise, go practice and Answersheet. A Tools entry for the Formula sheet and a Modules list sit in the sidebar, with a plus Add button top right — A module listing. Processed material carries a summary; a failed document says so in place of one.

Renaming and reordering

The pencil beside the Modules heading opens Edit Folders, which holds every module in the course at once. Each row carries a drag handle on the left and its position on the right, and the name is editable in place. Nothing is applied until Save Changes.

The Edit Folders modal listing three modules named Week 1 - Conduction, Week 3 - Radiation and Week 2 - Convection, each with a drag handle on the left and a position number on the right, above Cancel and Save Changes buttons — Edit Folders. Rename in place, drag to reorder, then save.

A single module also carries its own menu, reached from the … control on its row in the sidebar: Rename, Group access, and Delete. Deleting a module deletes its contents, and the confirmation says so.

Restricting a module to groups

Group access limits a module to one or more of the course’s groups. Leaving every group unchecked keeps the module visible to everyone enrolled, which is the default.

The Folder access modal for a module named Week 3 - Turbulence, offering a single checkbox for a group called Tutorial group A with a member count beside it, above Cancel and Save access buttons — Folder access. Only the groups you tick can see the module.

Educators and educator assistants always see every module, whatever the restriction says. Where a course has no groups yet, the modal says so and points you at course settings.

Adding materials

Select a module, then + Add. The options are:

Option	Use
Document	Upload files
Write	Author a page directly in the editor
Exams & exercises	Upload exam and solution files together
Existing exercise	Place an exercise already in the course
Existing lesson	Place a lesson from the institution catalogue
Website	Add a web page by URL

The add-content screen listing six options: Document, Write, Exams and exercises, Existing exercise, Existing lesson, and Website, each with a one-line description — All six ways to add material to a module.

Supported formats

Documents: PDF, Word (.doc, .docx), plain text
Slides: PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
Spreadsheets: Excel (.xls, .xlsx)
Notebooks: Jupyter (.ipynb), or a .zip bundle of notebooks

Maximum 100 MB per file. Several files can be uploaded at once, by dragging or selecting them.

The upload panel headed Drop your documents below, with a Review and upload files list holding one staged PDF called Lecture 7 - Boundary Layers.pdf with its file size and a cross to remove it, above Cancel and Upload file buttons and a Back to options link — Files are staged for review before uploading.

Files are listed for review before uploading, and can be removed from the list. Where an institution’s usage allowance is limited, a warning appears before the upload rather than after it.

Exams and exercises

Exams & exercises takes exam papers and their solutions in one pass. There is a single drop area rather than one field for papers and another for answers: drop the whole set at once and Alexandria works out which file answers which.

The Upload exams and solutions panel with a warning that exercises are paired with solutions automatically when document titles are similar, above a Drop files here area — Exams and their solutions are uploaded together and paired automatically.

Pairing is driven by the file names, and the panel says so: keep the titles close, as in Exercises 2025 and Exercises 2025 Solutions. Once processing finishes, the exam’s row in the module gains a link to its answer sheet and a count of the exercises extracted from it, which then become available as practice.

Writing a page in Alexandria

Write creates a page inside Alexandria rather than uploading one. Choosing it creates the page immediately, with no naming step, and opens the Desk, a block editor.

The Desk editor immediately after choosing Write, showing an empty document named Untitled document, a draft status control at the top right, and an Alexandria assistant panel down the left side — Write opens the Desk on a new, empty page named Untitled document.

The page carries a title at the top, which is editable, and a status beside it. New pages open as draft; the status control offers Publish. Edits save as you type, and the header reports when it is saving.

Down the left is an assistant scoped to the page, which can answer questions about it or edit text you have selected. It is present from the start and can be folded away with Hide chat.

The Desk. Blocks on the right, an assistant scoped to the page on the left.

What a module can hold

Besides uploaded documents, a module can hold pages written in the Desk, web pages, videos carried across from an LMS, exercises, and lessons placed from the institution catalogue. Each row states its kind beneath its name, so a module holding several kinds stays readable.

Existing lesson lists what the institution has published centrally and reports how many courses already use each one. Existing exercise places an exercise that is already in the course into a module as a step in its learning path.

Processing

Each document is read, indexed, and prepared for citation before students can use it.

Documents show a processing state while this happens. Most complete within a few minutes; a large batch takes longer. Processing is abandoned after 90 minutes rather than left pending indefinitely.

A failed document is marked as failed and reported to us automatically. It does not affect the rest of the course, and can be deleted and re-uploaded.

Managing a document

Management happens in the explore panel, opened with the arrow at the right of a document’s row. A document that failed to process opens the same panel when its row is clicked, since there is nothing to read.

The panel offers:

Hide: hidden documents are removed from the student view and from what the AI may answer with. The control reads Show once a document is hidden
Edit: change the name, the overview text, and the topics
Delete: with confirmation, warning where practice questions depend on it

Hidden documents remain visible to educators and teaching assistants, marked as hidden.

Explore

Besides those controls, the explore panel carries the AI-written introduction, the extracted topics with how often each appears, and a set of quick-start prompts that open a chat scoped to that document.

Formula sheet

Where a course’s materials contain mathematics, a Tools section appears above Modules in the library sidebar, holding Formula sheet. A course whose materials carry no formulas has no Tools section at all, which is why the entry is present in some courses and absent in others.

Formulas are collected from across the course, near-duplicates are folded together, and what remains is grouped under topic headings. Each entry names the document it came from and the page it appears on, so a student can go back to the passage that introduced it.

PDF export, beneath the Formula sheet entry in the sidebar, opens the sheet in your browser’s print dialogue. Save to PDF from there.

Course types

Courses carry a type, shown as a badge:

Verified: created or validated by your institution, typically LMS-synced
Student managed: created and curated by students
Personal project: an individual’s own space