LearnWise AI pilot draws mixed reaction from staff and students

If you’ve been on Canvas in the past month, you may have noticed a new feature: LearnWise Artificial Intelligence (AI). The University of Alberta launched a pilot that embeds LearnWise AI into Canvas courses. The pilot will run from September 2026 to May 2027. 

It started in a smaller focus group during the 2026 winter semester. After it “didn’t show any reason not to proceed,” the U of A moved to a university-wide pilot, Karsten Mundel explained. Mundel is the vice-provost (learning and digital integration), who oversees initiatives related to the U of A’s learning environment. 

Mundel explained that unlike general chatbots or large language models (LLMs), LearnWise is able to pull information from published course content to tailor its answers and functions to a specific course. 

“AI is quite ubiquitous in our learning environment, whether we have specific tools turned on or not,” he said. “I think it’s really important for us to explore and think through what are the kinds of tools that actually help us in the learning environment.”

It also provides guardrails around the tasks it will do. For example, it is supposed to decline requests to complete assignments for students, Mundel said. 

LearnWise can only access materials that are available to students. Assessments or unpublished content cannot be accessed. LearnWise can only access published Canvas text, PDFs, and Word documents; it cannot access linked library materials. 

Mundel added that LearnWise may be able to field simple questions from students about things like due dates. Instead of an instructor having to respond and likely tell the student it’s in their syllabus, LearnWise can provide the answer.

The basics of LearnWise

The LearnWise pilot has three streams: the campus assistant, course assistant, and feedback assistant. 

The campus assistant appears as a chat bubble that can answer questions about campus support and resources. It draws from web content from campus services to address questions about mental health, finances, and more. The campus assistant is automatically enabled on all Canvas pages and cannot be removed.

The course assistant allows both instructors and students to create study or learning activities from course materials. It can help generate summaries of concepts or readings for students or create study materials like flashcards and practice quizzes. This tool is embedded in Canvas courses unless instructors opt-out.

At the time of publication, about 66 per cent of courses had the course assistant enabled.

The feedback assistant helps instructors draft feedback on student assessments. It uses the rubric and the grader’s assignment notes to draft feedback. Instructors can have the feedback assistant adjust the tone and length. Graders can edit the feedback before they send it to students. The feedback assistant is only available upon request.

Less than 20 courses are using the feedback assistant at the time of publication.

The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) ran two LearnWise info sessions in mid-September. Over about an hour, the CTL team explained the features of LearnWise and answered questions from attendees.

The CTL team noted that the data collected by LearnWise is not shared outside of the U of A. LearnWise will not use data from the pilot to train its software.

The team suggested that instructors include an AI policy in their syllabus to be transparent with students about how instructors may be using LearnWise to generate feedback.

Several academic staff raised questions and concerns during the two sessions. Some questioned the need for the pilot and the benefits of integrating AI into the learning environment. 

Others mentioned seeing a low appetite from students to use AI tools in their learning. 

One person said they tested LearnWise and saw it hallucinate. AI hallucinations refer to an AI model giving false or misleading results.

In response to a question, the CTL team said that instructors can see how students use the course assistant.

Consultation, communication, and implementation questioned

Carolyn Sale, an English professor, started posting on X when she discovered that LearnWise had been embedded into Canvas. 

She only learned about it from other instructors who discovered the software already embedded in their Canvas courses. Other instructors at the LearnWise info sessions also raised concerns about the lack of communication before the U of A enabled LearnWise.

Eventually, Sale published a three-part blog outlining her concerns with LearnWise and AI in university learning at large.

One of her first questions was “how is it possible that this thing has been embedded into our Canvas sites?”

She stressed that the process that the university went through to approve LearnWise matters. 

Sale is concerned that the U of A administration is bypassing the General Faculties Council (GFC) and the proper governance process with provostial committees and the president’s task forces.

“So when I say collegial governance is circumvented, what I mean is that body, [GFC] … which is a very significant cohort of student representation, a decent amount of faculty representation, did not have the opportunity to exercise its judgement at all,” she explained. 

“And we’re talking about something … that’s at the core of what we do at the university,” Sale said. “We teach and we do research. This is about how we teach.”

Sale hasn’t been able to find any record of the General Faculties Council, a governing body made up of students and faculty, discussing or approving the LearnWise pilot. 

Mundel said the U of A’s AI steering committee, its subcommittee on teaching and learning, and GFC’s Committee on Learning Environment and Student Affairs (CLESA) were consulted ahead of implementation. 

CLESA’s public minutes show no record of LearnWise being mentioned ahead of September. The AI Steering Committee and its subcommittees do not post public minutes.

The AI Steering Committee and its subcommittees are committees operating under the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic).

Concerns and questions for academic staff

Kristine Smitka, president of the Association of Academic Staff at the U of A(AASUA), also published a statement about LearnWise on October 1. The statement followed a meeting with the U of A about LearnWise on September 18.

The statement said that the U of A had not consulted AASUA before implementing the pilot. Smitka only received notice of the pilot on August 18, 2026.

AASUA sent the U of A a list of questions about the pilot and requested a written response by September 28. AASUA’s statement said the U of A was not able to meet the deadline due to the breadth of questions.

“Since this time, the AASUA has been inundated with questions and concerns from members,” the context section of the questions from AASUA said. “Frankly, the rushed launch of this pilot project has elicited an immediate and intense response from many AASUA members.”

It also noted that AASUA’s collective agreement governs the terms and conditions of employment, which cannot be overridden by a pilot project.

The list included about 38 questions, covering a range of concerns with the pilot. Questions ranged from intellectual property concerns, the decision to make the pilot opt-out instead of opt-in, and potential impacts on employment and future bargaining.

AASUA also questioned the message students see if an instructor has opted-out of the course assistant.

AASUA stated the message gives the “gives the impression that the instructor is choosing not to enable a possibly beneficial tool for students. Although instructors have academic freedom to decide if they want to participate in this pilot, is the student message not inducing participation in LearnWise by creating student expectations that the instructor must then negotiate?”

Few concerns for students, UASU says

Susan Huseynova, the U of A Students’ Union (UASU) vice-president (academic), said she hasn’t heard many concerns from students about LearnWise. 

She said that the UASU was consulted on LearnWise as the U of A migrated to Canvas.

“It’s not up to the student to turn [LearnWise] on or off, it’s up to the instructor,” she said. “I haven’t heard many issues with students, and if students don’t want to use the AI assistant, they just don’t.”

“No AI assistant should be imposed on any student. In this case, I don’t think it’s being imposed in that way,” she added.

Huseynova stressed the importance of student consultation as the U of A navigates AI in the university. Thus far, she’s been satisfied with how the U of A has approached student consultation. 

When asked about the feedback assistant, Huseynova said she wasn’t aware of that stream before the interview. However, she said that there is potential for the feedback assistant to be problematic if instructors aren’t transparent with students. 

She added that as long as LearnWise contains student information within the U of A servers, “then we’re on an okay basis.”

Sale has concerns around student well-being. “They’re already feeling disconnected and isolated, right? And now you want them to learn from machines rather than from humans.”

She said instead of pushing AI learning, the U of A should be enhancing classrooms as social environments. This means investing in academic staff.

Sale worries the U of A may use AI assistants to do the opposite.

“The university may seek to lessen its dependence upon tutorial assistants (TAs) simply to cut costs,” she said.

Mundel said the goal of the pilot is not to automate or reduce jobs within the university. 

“That is not the plan at all, and that’s not one of the … evaluation criteria,” he said. “The teaching work that we do here will always be a human activity.”

Mundel’s team will gather feedback from both students and staff, as well as data around LearnWise’s use, to determine future steps.

Mundel declined to share the cost of the pilot.