CircleIn: On-Demand Academic Support

Many faculty members have legitimate concerns about academic integrity, mainly students using generic AI tools to copy/paste their way through assignments, and the effect of generic AI on critical thinking. Those concerns are precisely why the initiative with CircleIn matters.

CircleIn is an alternative to students using generic AI models that can do the work for them. The platform provides our students with Responsible AI Tutoring, built with integrity, designed so students can’t use it to cheat. Rather it challenges students to think critically by using questions, explanations, hints, practice, reflection, and step-by-step guidance to keep them engaged in the learning process. CircleIn is free for students to use in an unlimited fashion and they can get universal support across all their courses without the burden of professors becoming AI engineers.

To learn more:

CircleIn AI Tutor STEM Professors Intro Video

CircleIn AI Tutor Humanities/Writing Professors Intro Video

Playbook for Professors to Share CircleIn

Want More?

We encourage you to review the CircleIn Calendar for Professors where there are weekly opportunities to join professors and the CircleIn team to experience and explore Responsible AI Tutoring together as a replacement for generic AI tools. With the calendar link above, you will also see that they host weekly Office Hours where professors can drop in during the scheduled times to talk and ask questions.

CircleIn’s AI Tutor can be manually trained by faculty through content uploaded directly to the CircleIn app. Additionally, faculty can provide specific instructions to customize how the AI tutor discusses topics and interacts with students.

The AI Tutor is also integrated with Canvas, allowing course materials that are available to students -- such as class notes, presentations, review materials, and syllabi -- to help inform and refine the support it provides. (Note: Any training contents loaded into the tutor do NOT go beyond the course section, are NOT used to train the general AI tutor, and do NOT become property of CircleIn.) 

Faculty can adjust or deactivate the Canvas sync at any time by completing the following steps:

1. Log in to CircleIn
2. On the home screen, under the AI tutor prompt bar, select Customize AI tutor
3. Select the desired course(s)
4. Under LMS sync settings, content types can turned off by type, or the Canvas sync can be disabled entirely.

Under the Training Materials heading, faculty can also view all content that has been used to train the tutor and have the option to disable individual content. 

Faculty who wish to opt out of the AI tutor for their courses can do so by completing the following steps: 

1. Log in to CircleIn
2. Go to the course section
3. Hover over the AI Tutor option in the course menu
4. Select the pencil icon
5. Select Delete AI Tutor

Note: Opting out of the AI Tutor will not remove access to CircleIn’s other Study Tools for your course. Students will still be able to use features such as flashcards, the study planner, and other course study resources, including group chats.