Tools Development

In collaboration with faculty and instructional designers, we explore and develop a range of tools, including Canvas LTI tools, virtual reality apps, and other innovative solutions, all aimed at improving the online academic experience.

57+

tools and counting

3743

USU courses used our tools in Spring 2022

spin off company

A Sampling of Our Tools

Canvas LTI Virtual Reality Other

Academic Observer

Provides Athletics & other units a safe and easy way to monitor the academic progress of a team or group of students within Canvas.

AI Study Guide

An AI-powered study aid that enables students to generate study guides or quizzes based on the content of a Canvas page.

ChatGPT Bots

Chat bots powered by ChatGPT that source their information from official university webpages. Exploring ways to make it easier for students, faculty, and staff to find the information they need.

ECG App

A virtual reality experience connected to Canvas where students complete an electrocardiogram by placing 12 leads on a patient to measure and assess their heart rhythm.

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Office Hours

Enables instructors to create and display office hours that students can view and schedule within Canvas.

ReadyGo

Assists instructional design teams in tracking course development progress including ensuring courses have content, contain a syllabus, and have instructors and students assigned.

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TidyUp

Helps faculty and instructional design teams quickly and easily identify and remove unpublished pages, outdated content/files, and empty folders from Canvas courses.

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Service Preferences

Enables instructors to specify how they would like the CIDI support team to address potential technical issues in their Canvas courses and specify additional services that interest them.

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Course Evaluation

Provides an easy way for teachers and instructional designers to evaluate their course design and organization in Canvas to ensure quality learning experiences for all students.

Writing Coach

An AI tool designed to help students determine essay topics, build outlines, and obtain essay feedback, while enabling faculty to review and grade student interactions with the tool as assignments.

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Zoom Connect

A home grown system that creates and configures Zoom meetings for Connect courses and automatically joins Zoom Rooms to meetings based on course schedules.

Spinning Off a Company

In 2013, after seeing the amount of work that went into designing a course in Canvas, Teaching & Learning Technologies (TLT) created Design Tools for Canvas (now known as DesignPLUS) to better empower faculty and instructional designers in designing high quality online courses. Recognizing the value DesignPLUS could bring to other institutions, USU collaborated with edtech industry veteran, Mike Zackrison, to spin out a company focused on "enabling 'Saas-sharing' of locally-developed instructional design tools and innovations." In 2016, Cidi Labs was born.

Today, Cidi Labs works with over 500 higher education and K-12 organizations, helping them improve the instructional design and learning process in Canvas courses. Four of the five products currently offered by Cidi Labs were created by TLT: DesignPLUS, ObservEd, ReadyGO, and TidyUP.

For more information about Cidi Labs, visit cidilabs.com/about.

Contact Us

Interested in learning more or collaborating? Get in touch with us!