Frequently Asked Questions
The questions we hear most. For anything not covered here, drop us a note.
Product
- Who is CourseKeel for?
- Instructional designers, curriculum directors, and academic leaders at K–12 schools, charter networks, and higher-ed institutions who own a course of study — not a single class. If your job is the alignment chain (standards → course objectives → unit objectives → lesson objectives → assessment items) and your LMS does not help you author that chain, this is built for you.
- What does CourseKeel actually do?
- It is a curriculum authoring studio at course-of-study scale. You import standards (CASE v1.1, Canvas, CSV, or AI extraction), map outcomes to courses at Introduce/Develop/Master stages, define course and unit objectives, draft lessons and AI-aligned assessments, and publish to Canvas or download Common Cartridge / PDF. Every artifact traces upward to a standard.
- We already have courses built in Canvas. Do we have to start over?
- You don’t start from zero. Direct course import (Common Cartridge and Canvas API) is in development — today, teams rebuild course structure in CourseKeel quickly with AI assistance, then run alignment retroactively: AI proposes standard-to-content links, each backed by a verbatim quote from the course, and your curriculum team confirms each one with a stage. The result is the same evidence chain a course built in CourseKeel from day one would have.
- How is this different from our LMS?
- An LMS is a delivery surface — it shows content to students. CourseKeel is upstream: it is where the curriculum is designed and proven aligned before it ever hits the LMS. We publish into Canvas with native rubrics, modules, outcomes, and New Quizzes; we are not a competing delivery platform.
Compatibility
- Do we have to use Canvas?
- No. The Canvas integration is a tier — not a requirement. Without it, every course exports as IMS Common Cartridge (.imscc) for import into Moodle, Brightspace, Blackboard, Schoology, or any CC-compatible LMS, plus print/PDF for schools without an LMS at all.
- What standards frameworks are supported?
- Any framework available via the IMS CASE v1.1 standard — including most state DOE frameworks, NGSS, CCSS, and any framework hosted on OpenSALT or similar servers. Plus Canvas outcome import, CSV import, and AI extraction from PDF or text for proprietary frameworks.
- Do you support SCORM / xAPI / cmi5?
- CourseKeel sits upstream of runtime content standards. SCORM and cmi5 are for content that runs inside an LMS player; if you have such content (CourseArc, Articulate, Captivate), it remains in those tools and is referenced from CourseKeel. We focus on the alignment layer that those tools do not provide.
AI usage
- What does AI generate and how is it used?
- AI assists with assessment question generation at specified DOK levels, objective extraction from source documents, alignment proposals with verbatim evidence, rubric drafting, and content rewrite suggestions. All AI output is reviewable, editable, and attributable — content fields where AI was used carry an AI-disclosure note so reviewers know what was machine-drafted vs human-authored.
- Does AI decide our alignments?
- No. When aligning a course, AI only proposes: each proposal carries a verbatim quote from your course, machine-checked against the source before you ever see it — a proposal whose quote cannot be verified is discarded. A curriculum director assigns the Introduce/Develop/Master stage and confirms each proposal individually; there is no way to apply one decision to many proposals unread. The curricular commitment is always a person’s.
- Is our content used to train AI models?
- No. We use Google Gemini via API. Per Google’s API terms, customer prompts and outputs sent to the Gemini API are not used to train Google’s models. Your curriculum is not aggregated into anyone’s training set.
Pricing & onboarding
- How much does it cost?
- Pricing is per institution — unlimited users, unlimited courses, no per-seat fees or per-course caps. Tiered around the integrations you need (Canvas sync, OAuth setup, rubric pass-through, and content migration are on the integrated tier). Contact us for a quote tailored to your institution.
- Can we trial it?
- We do sales-led pilots rather than self-serve free trials — at this scale, a successful pilot needs scoped success criteria, a real course-of-study artifact at the end, and our hands-on support. Get in touch and we will design a pilot together.
- How long does onboarding take?
- Typical first course mapped end-to-end (standards imported, course/unit objectives drafted, one unit published to Canvas) lands in 2–4 weeks. Full department rollout is typically 1 semester. We provide a dedicated onboarding contact for the first 60 days.
Data & continuity
- Where is our data stored?
- On enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure operated by SOC 2-audited providers, with data partitioned per organization and enforced at multiple layers. See the Privacy Policy for full details and the security packet (available under NDA) for the architectural specifics.
- What happens to our content if we cancel?
- You own your curriculum. On cancellation, you can export every course as Common Cartridge (.imscc) for import into any LMS, plus PDFs for print delivery. We retain data for 30 days after cancellation per the Privacy Policy, then purge.
- Can multiple designers collaborate on the same course?
- Yes. Multi-user editing with role-based access (admin, sub-admin, designer, instructor, reviewer) is included. Cross-tab conflict detection prevents silent overwrites. A magic-link review mode for faculty / department chairs who do not need full accounts is on the near-term roadmap.
Compliance & evidence
- Does this help with accreditation reporting?
- Yes — the alignment chain is itself an evidence artifact. Every course’s outcomes-to-objectives-to-assessments traceability is queryable; we are building first-class accreditation packet exports (alignment maps, DOK distributions, evidence chains) over the next two quarters. Ask us about your specific accreditor — we can usually scope a fit conversation in 15 minutes.
- Is the platform accessible (WCAG / Section 508)?
- We target WCAG 2.2 AA and enforce it with automated testing: axe-core scans run in CI against the public site and the application on every change, alongside accessibility linting, and the interface is keyboard-operable with screen-reader-compatible semantics. We don’t publish conformance claims we haven’t verified — a criterion-by-criterion evaluation is in progress, and we’ll publish a VPAT when the manual pass completes. Details on our accessibility page. Final accessibility of authored content depends on what designers create; CourseKeel sits upstream of runtime accessibility checkers like Canvas Ally, which scan published content. Content fields support semantic HTML, alt text on images, and accessible math notation.
Still have questions? Contact us — we usually reply within one business day.