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Scope finds your courses by reading your school’s course site while you’re signed in to it. There’s no school code to enter and no password to give Scope. You open Canvas or Brightspace once, and Scope does the rest in the background.

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Supported course sites

Scope works with Canvas and Brightspace (also called D2L). It recognizes these addresses automatically: If your school uses its own address for Canvas or Brightspace, you can add it. See Add your school’s site.
Search, the agenda, Ask Scope, and the study commands work on both. Some features work only on Canvas: Canvas appearance, grades, sending course files to Lectra from a course page, Study in Polya, and Connect Canvas. See Where Scope works.

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Find your courses for the first time

1

Open your course site

Click the Scope icon in your toolbar, then click Open Canvas. You can also click Open Canvas on the welcome page that opened when you installed Scope.Scope picks where to go: a course tab you already have open, your school’s Canvas if it can tell from your account, or Canvas’s own find-your-school page.
2

Sign in to your school

If your school asks you to sign in, sign in as usual. Scope never sees your password and doesn’t run on sign-in pages.
3

Let Scope look through your courses

Stay on any course page. The bottom of the Scope popup shows progress, such as Updating your courses… 2 of 5, then Reading course pages… 2 of 5, then Almost done….
4

Check what Scope found

When it finishes, the bottom-right corner of the popup shows how many items Scope found, for example 214 items. Click it to open Everything Scope Found.
The first pass finds titles, due dates, and links. Scope then keeps reading the text of course pages, the syllabus, assignment instructions, and PDFs in the background, so searches get better over the next few minutes.

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How Scope stays up to date

You don’t need to do anything to keep your courses current.
  • When you switch to a course tab, Scope checks for new material.
  • While a course tab is open, Scope checks again about every 30 minutes.
  • Scope reads the text inside new course PDFs in the background.
  • If a PDF is a scan with no text in it, Scope reads the scanned pages on your computer while you’re away from it, so your computer stays responsive while you work.
Scope only checks for new material while you have a Canvas or Brightspace tab open. If you haven’t opened your course site in a while, open it and Scope catches up.

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Check for new material now

If your instructor recently posted something, you can ask Scope to look right away.
1

Open a course tab

Make sure a Canvas or Brightspace tab is open and you’re signed in.
2

Refresh

Click the Scope icon, click More actions (the three dots), and choose Refresh sync.
The bottom of the popup shows the progress. When it’s done, it says how long ago Scope last checked, such as synced 1m ago.

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Messages you might see

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Add your school’s site

If your school’s Canvas or Brightspace uses an address Scope doesn’t recognize, add it in Settings.
1

Go to a course page

Open a course page on your school’s site, such as a course home page or assignment list.
2

Open Settings

Click the Scope icon, then click the Settings icon (the gear).
3

Add the site

Under Course sites, Scope shows Add this site? with your school’s address. Click Add.
4

Reload the course page

Go back to the course tab and reload it. Scope starts finding your courses.
Scope offers Add this site? only when the page looks like a course page. If you don’t see the offer, open a course’s home page or its assignment list and open Settings again.
On a site you add, Scope finds your courses, and you search them from the Scope icon in your toolbar. The ⌘+K search bar, Ask Scope, and the commands open only on the Canvas and Brightspace addresses Scope recognizes on its own.
To stop Scope from running on a site you added, go to Settings > Course sites and click Remove next to it.

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Connect Canvas with an access token (optional)

By default, Scope works from the Canvas pages you open. If you sign in to Scope, you can also give it a Canvas access token. Then Ask Scope can check what’s due, module pages, and files for you even when Canvas isn’t open.
An access token is a long code that Canvas creates for you. It lets an app read your Canvas account without your password. You can delete it in Canvas at any time.
1

Sign in to Scope

The Connect Canvas section appears in Settings only after you sign in. See Sign in to Scope.
2

Create a token in Canvas

In Canvas, go to Account > Settings. Under Approved Integrations, choose + New Access Token. Name it “Scope”, pick an expiry if you like, and choose Generate Token. Copy the token.
3

Paste it into Scope

In Scope, open Settings > Connect Canvas. In Canvas address, enter your school’s Canvas address, such as school.instructure.com. In Access token, paste the token.
4

Connect

Click Connect. When it works, Scope shows Connected to your school’s address and your Canvas name.
Scope uses the token only when you ask it something about your courses.
Some schools don’t let students create access tokens. If you don’t see + New Access Token in Canvas, skip this step. Scope keeps working with the Canvas pages you open.
To disconnect, open Settings > Connect Canvas and click Disconnect. Scope forgets your token. You can also delete it in Canvas under Approved Integrations.

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If the connection fails

Search your courses

Find any file, page, or assignment with Cmd+K or Ctrl+K.

Troubleshooting

Fix courses that don’t show up or look out of date.