Frequently Asked Questions

CampusConnect is a Chrome extension that layers real-time group chat, direct messaging, AI study tools, and a smart grade dashboard directly into your Canvas LMS — no new tabs or extra apps. You open Canvas and everything is right there.

Yes. The free plan includes course group chat, DMs, study groups, grade dashboard, AI chat (limited daily messages), flashcards, study notes, and more. Pro ($2.99/mo) and Scholar ($6.99/mo) plans unlock higher AI limits, Canvas dark mode, PDF editing, and premium AI models.

Any university that uses Canvas LMS. The extension runs on all Canvas instances — .instructure.com domains and university-specific Canvas URLs across 60+ countries. If your school uses Canvas, CampusConnect works.

No. CampusConnect uses your existing Canvas login. When you open Canvas with the extension installed, it picks up your session automatically. No separate sign-up, no passwords to remember.

No. CampusConnect operates as a student-only layer on top of Canvas. Professors and TAs don't have access to the extension, the group chats, DMs, or any of your AI interactions. It's invisible to instructors.

We fetch your Canvas academic data (grades, assignments, announcements) using your existing Canvas session — we never see or store your Canvas password. Chat messages are stored on AWS servers in the US. AI interactions are logged for quality improvement with a 90-day retention. See our full privacy policy for details.

No. We never ask for, see, or store your Canvas credentials. The extension runs inside your browser and uses your existing logged-in Canvas session to access the Canvas API — the same way Canvas itself works.

No. Your data is never sold. We use it solely to power CampusConnect features. Chat messages stay in our database, Canvas data is processed in your browser, and AI queries go to our LLM provider to generate responses.

When you install CampusConnect, a group chat room is automatically created for each of your Canvas courses. Every student in that course who has the extension sees the same chat room. No invite links, no setup — just open Canvas and start talking.

The AI can generate flashcards from your course content, create study notes, answer questions about your assignments and syllabi, analyze uploaded PDFs and lecture files, and act as a contextual study assistant that understands what Canvas page you're on. You can also @CampusBot in any group chat or DM to ask it questions.

The free and Pro tiers use DeepSeek. The Scholar tier unlocks premium models including Claude and GPT. For image and PDF analysis, we use Google's Gemini Flash for vision processing.

It's a small AI assistant that sits in the bottom-right corner of every Canvas page. It automatically knows what page you're on — if you're viewing an assignment, it can answer questions about that assignment. You can also highlight any text on Canvas and ask the AI about it.

Yes. CampusConnect itself has 6 themes (Midnight, Aurora, Sakura, Ocean, Emerald, and Frost). On Pro and Scholar plans, you also get Canvas-wide dark mode that reskins the entire Canvas interface — not just the extension.

You can create public or invite-only study groups within your courses. They have their own chat rooms separate from the main course chat. There's also a Study Finder feature where you can mark yourself as looking for study partners and find others in your class doing the same.

The extension needs access to Canvas domains to inject the UI and read your academic data. Storage permission saves your settings locally. Notifications permission enables message alerts. Each permission serves a specific feature — we don't request anything we don't use.

No. The extension loads asynchronously after Canvas finishes rendering. Canvas API calls are cached and deduplicated to minimize network requests. The WebSocket connection is lightweight and only active when you have Canvas open.

Not currently. CampusConnect is a Chrome extension (Manifest V3) and works on Chrome and Chromium-based browsers like Edge and Brave. Firefox and Safari support is not available yet.

Your Canvas returns to normal. Your chat messages remain on our servers (so they're there if you reinstall), but nothing is left behind in your browser. Canvas itself is completely unaffected.

Make sure you're on a Canvas page (your university's Canvas URL). Look for the CampusConnect icon in the left sidebar navigation. If it's not there, try refreshing the page. If you still don't see it, check that the extension is enabled in chrome://extensions.

Check if you've hit your daily AI message limit (shown in the AI tab). Free users have a limited number of daily messages. If you haven't hit the limit, try refreshing Canvas — the WebSocket connection may have dropped.

Group chat only shows students who also have CampusConnect installed. If you're the first person in your class to install it, the chat will be empty until others join. Share the extension with your classmates!