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Scope is a set of free apps for students. Canvas is where your course lives: the syllabus, the files, the announcements, and the deadlines. Scope is where you do the work. You find the reading, mark it up, keep your notes together, and work through problems until you understand them. Scope doesn’t replace Canvas, and you don’t need your instructor to set anything up. Each app works with the course you already have.

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The apps

Scope extension

A Chrome extension that searches your Canvas and Brightspace courses and answers questions with links to your course materials.

Lectra

An iPad app for reading and marking up PDFs with Apple Pencil, handwritten notes, lecture recording, and Python notebooks.

Polya

A tutor at askpolya.com that helps you from your own course materials and cites the page, slide, or lecture moment behind each answer.
Two smaller apps connect these to your other devices:

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How the apps fit together

Each app works on its own. They’re most useful together, during an ordinary week of a course:
  1. Find it. In Chrome, press ⌘ K (Mac) or Ctrl K (Windows and ChromeOS) on a Canvas or Brightspace page, and type what you’re looking for. After you open your school’s site once, the Scope extension finds your courses and searches all of them. To learn more, see Search your courses.
  2. Send it to your iPad. When the result is a PDF, send it to Lectra. It lands in the Scope Inbox in your Lectra library. To learn how, see Send files to Lectra on your iPad.
  3. Work on it. In Lectra, read and mark up the PDF with Apple Pencil, add notes, or record the lecture while you write. To learn more, see Mark up a document.
  4. Hand it in. On a Canvas or Gradescope upload page, choose Select from Lectra to attach your marked-up PDF. Scope fills in the file; you still submit it yourself.
  5. Get unstuck. When a problem doesn’t make sense, ask Polya. It answers from your course materials and, by default, starts with a hint instead of the answer. To learn more, see Ask questions in Polya.

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One account for every app

The Scope extension, Lectra, and Polya share one Scope account. If you sign in to each app with the same Google account, your PDFs, backups, and courses all belong to that one account. To learn which sign-in options each app offers, see Your Scope account. You don’t need an account for everything. The Scope extension can search your courses without one, and Lectra works without one if you choose Sign in later.

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What Scope doesn’t do

  • It doesn’t submit work for you. Scope can find a file and attach it to an upload form, but you press submit.
  • It isn’t part of Canvas or Brightspace. Scope isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by Instructure or D2L.
  • It doesn’t decide what help your course allows. Your instructor’s rules and your school’s academic-integrity policy apply to how you use any study tool, including Scope. In Polya, you choose how much help you get in each course.

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What you need

  • For the Scope extension: Google Chrome on a computer, and a Canvas or Brightspace course.
  • For Lectra: an iPad or iPhone with iPadOS 18 or iOS 18 or later. Apple Pencil is optional but recommended.
  • For Polya: a web browser and a Google account.
For full details, see System requirements.

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Next steps

Quickstart

Set up each app in your first 10 minutes.

Choose the right app

Match what you want to do with the app that does it.