Set up your course
For educators
Alexandria draws on the materials already held in your LMS. Materials are not uploaded a second time and the roster is not rebuilt by hand: the course is connected once and mirrored thereafter.
Connection takes a few minutes and is performed once per course.
Connect the course
Section titled “Connect the course”On the first launch from an unconnected course, Alexandria detects that no connection exists and opens the setup page.
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Open Alexandria from inside your course in Canvas, Brightspace, or Moodle.
In Canvas, Alexandria sits in the course navigation. Brightspace and Moodle place it as a link or activity in the course instead. -
On the setup page, find your course in the list.
The setup page. Only courses where you are a teacher, teaching assistant or admin are listed. -
Press Sync to bring the whole course across, or Manual Sync to pick out individual modules first.
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Choose the language for AI-generated content, read what the sync will do, then press Start sync.
The confirmation step spells out what the sync will do before anything is pulled across.
You can also start from Alexandria rather than from the LMS. Your courses are listed on the home page, and Add Course at the top right offers both Sync from LMS, which imports a Canvas, Brightspace or Moodle course, and Create a course, which starts an empty one. Sync from LMS leads to the same setup page as a launch does.
Creating a course by hand
Section titled “Creating a course by hand”Create a course asks for very little: a name, a course code, and the language AI-generated content should use. Everything else is set afterwards in course settings.
A course you create rather than sync opens empty, and says so.
What comes across
Section titled “What comes across”| From your LMS | In Alexandria |
|---|---|
| Course | The Alexandria course |
| Modules and sections | Folders, with the same structure |
| Files and documents | Course materials the AI can use |
| Course pages | Readable content |
| Roster | Enrolments, with roles mapped from the LMS |
Only published content is synced. Anything still unpublished in the LMS stays out of Alexandria, so if a student cannot see it in the LMS they cannot see it here either.
On Canvas, the sync also adds a Library of Alexandria module to the course, so students can open Alexandria from the course itself.
Roles are derived from the LMS and are not assigned manually. An instructor becomes an Educator, a teaching assistant an Educator Assistant, and all others Students. Where a role is absent or unrecognised, Alexandria defaults to Student, never to a role with greater access.
Re-syncing is safe
Section titled “Re-syncing is safe”Re-sync whenever the course changes. Alexandria compares the LMS against its existing record and acts only on the difference: new files are added, changed files reprocessed, removed files deleted. Existing configuration is preserved rather than rebuilt.
Re-syncing by hand is not the only route. Where an institution has automatic sync enabled, Alexandria re-syncs its courses on its own at 08:00, 12:00 and 16:00 Central European Time on weekdays, and no one has to press anything. The manual control stays available for when a change should appear before the next run.
Adding materials that are not in the LMS
Section titled “Adding materials that are not in the LMS”Materials may also be uploaded directly. Supported formats:
- Documents: PDF, Word (
.doc,.docx), plain text - Slides: PowerPoint (
.ppt,.pptx) - Spreadsheets: Excel (
.xls,.xlsx) - Notebooks: Jupyter (
.ipynb), or a.zipof a notebook bundle
While materials are processing
Section titled “While materials are processing”Each document is read, indexed, and prepared for citation. A processing state is shown until this completes.
Most documents complete within a few minutes. Large batches take longer; processing is abandoned after 90 minutes and any outstanding documents are reported rather than left pending indefinitely. A failed document is reported with a reason and does not affect the remainder of the course.
Getting students in
Section titled “Getting students in”Students on the LMS roster gain access by launching Alexandria from the course. No registration or separate password is required.
Users absent from the roster can be enrolled by email address from course settings, or given a course invite link, offered as Invite to Course in the course menu at the top right.