We recently had an incredible time at InstructureCon, where we were thrilled to unveil Instructure’s newest product, Intelligent Insights. The response was overwhelming, and we were delighted to see so much excitement and curiosity about what we've been working on.
Throughout the conference, we hosted multiple introduction sessions on the product, and it was amazing to see so many of you engaged and eager to learn more.
We understand that not everyone could attend, and even those who did might have more questions that we did not have time to address as part of different Q&A sessions - and that is why we thought of putting together this blog post to answer the most frequently asked questions from the conference. Whether you were there in person or following along from afar, we want to ensure you have all the information you need about Intelligent Insights.
So, let’s dive into the questions you’ve been asking!
Is intelligent insights included with our canvas license or is it going to be an add-on to our contracts?
Intelligent Insights is an upgrade to your Canvas LMS subscription.
Is Intelligent insights included in an impact subscription?
Intelligent Insights is an upgrade to your Canvas LMS subscription. Given the high importance and need to better understand LTI launch information, the LTI Usage Data feature of Intelligent Insights is also included in Impact by default - this way Impact customers will get this one feature as part of their Impact subscription as well.
Is there a separate permission entry specific to Intelligent Insights?
Yes, each feature of Intelligent Insights (Students in need of attention, Course Readiness, LTI Usage Data and Ask Your Data) has its own permission entry in the Account Role section.
Can we limit access to specific components with a custom account role?
Yes, the 4 components of Intelligent Insights have their own permission entries in the Account Roles section, so you can further specify who should have access to which features.
Do Teachers have access to these Insights tools, especially the “students in need of attention” tool?
Not for the time being, but enabling these tools for teachers / instructors is definitely in our roadmap to achieve. We’d like to empower teachers to be able to better understand how their courses meet the institution’s readiness criteria, and which of their students might need further help with their studies.
Can accessibility status be part of the Course Readiness criteria?
Accessibility status as a readiness criteria in Course Readiness has been raised as an idea, our team will assess feasibility.
Can I add custom elements to my criteria, such as ti or something like a simple Syllabus?
Currently only those criteria elements are available that have been published as part of the features of Students in Need of Attention and Course Readiness, however, we are looking to expand on what is available as selectable criteria elements.
Is there a place for faculty to add notes for individual students?
Not at the moment, but this is a great idea and we’ll log it in our Idea backlog.
Can the Course Readiness parameters be different or dialed down to sub-accounts or it’s only set for the root account?
Course Readiness can be scoped to a sub-account in multiple ways - an individual Criteria set can be created on the sub-account level, or you can use the built-in Filter option to filter on a specific sub-account.
Can you filter students in need of attention by letter grade? Some of our grading scales might have 70% as a low C while other courses have 70% as a high B.
Currently you can only set the criteria to consider the % based score.
Do sub-account admins have access to the data for their sub-account only?
Students in Need of Attention and Course Readiness are available on the sub-account level as well, or you can just use the Filters option to filter on specific sub-accounts.
Ask Your Data and LTI Usage Data is only available on the root account level at the moment, however, we do recognize the value in enabling them in the sub-account level as well and this is something our teams are actively working on.
If I set pages as published for a Course Readiness criteria, does that mean individual pages are published, or that pages are visible in the menu?
It means that individual pages are published.
When Course Readiness messages teachers for courses that are not ready, does it just send a generic message or can it specifically tell them which criteria they have not met?
Currently it sends a static message that the Canvas Admin composes in the tool, however, we recognize that dynamic elements in these messages would increase the value and effectiveness of them (like which course the message is about, and which criteria elements are currently not up to the Course Readiness criteria). This is something our engineering team is actively working on.
Are messages sent to the people sent via Canvas inbox, or just straight email?
The messages are sent to the recipients’ Canvas Inbox.
Who does the message appear to come from?
The messages currently show the specific Canvas Admin as the sender.
Can you create a custom group of students to monitor, such as a learning community?
Not at the moment, but this is a great idea and we’ll log it in our Idea backlog.
Are results from Ask Your Data shareable with other admins?
Data results can be downloaded to CSV. We’re also looking to enable more collaborative capabilities in the Pinboards section, where specific pinboards can be shared with other Admins, or even managed together by saving pins to the same pinboard by multiple users.
When we use AI, is our data protected and only accessible by our institution or is it used to teach the AI further?
Intelligent Insights does NOT send any customer data to any AI, ever. The only information the AI is being trained on is the data model (structure of the data) of Canvas, but not the actual data points, customer records or granular data.
Were there any concerns about "big brother"-ism raised during beta testing?
Ask Your Data complies with Instructure’s security and privacy requirements, that are based on GDPR standards. We make sure no customer data enters any AI model, all data is processed and stored in the same region where the particular Canvas instance resides etc. If you have further questions or would like to learn more about Instructure’s security and privacy policies, please do reach out to privacy@instructure.com.
Can you sort the Pinboards using drag & drop?
Not at the moment, but this is a functionality we’re planning to roll out in the very near future. Enabling custom sorting using drag & drop would enable users to practically compose and create their own self-service Pinboards, and customize them to their liking.
if you revisit a pin - will the data results be static from when you ran it, or will it update with current data?
Currently the pins are always showing real-time data, however, we do recognize the value in enabling pins to show snapshots of the data as of the time of the original AI prompt - this is something we are ideating.
Can Ask your Data pull data about teacher progress or performance?
Ask Your Data has access to every data points in the Canvas namespace - more detailed documentation on what data tables those are can be found here.
Is there a way to delete conversation messages from Ask Your Data?
Not at the moment, conversation history will show all of your conversations from the last 90 days.
Is the Analytics Hub part of Intelligent Insights?
No, the Analytics Hub is not part of Intelligent Insights, however, being the central library and launchpad for data & analytics capabilities in Canvas, it is the entry point to the components of Intelligent Insights.
What user roles have access to the “Analytics Hub” by default? Is there a new permission for this that can be set for a user role?
By default, Account admins have permission to open the Analytics Hub, however, it does have a separate permission entry in the Account Roles section (name: “Analytics Hub”) so this can be further specified by admins.
Is the Analytics Hub replacing Admin Analytics?
No, these are completely separate features in Canvas with different purposes. Admin Analytics is providing a set of descriptive analytics and dashboards for Admins to understand Canvas usage, Course overview and Students overview, while the Analytics Hub is not a data product, it’s a central library and launchpad (one-stop-shop) for other data and analytics capabilities, including the Admin Analytics as well.
While these were some of the top questions we received at InstructureCon, we know that new products often spark even more curiosity. If you have additional questions or want to dive deeper into any aspect of Intelligent Insights, we encourage you to join the conversation in our community forums!
