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Top Questions Students Ask About Canvas LMS
Top Questions Students Ask About Canvas LMS
New to Canvas? This guide answers the most common student questions fast and clearly.
Jun 10, 2025
Writing with AI
10 min read
Table of contents
Frequently asked questions
Canvas itself doesn’t have built-in AI detection tools. However, schools and universities can add tools like Turnitin to Canvas. These tools can check for AI-written content, including text generated by ChatGPT. For example, Azusa Pacific University uses Turnitin’s SimCheck feature inside Canvas. This means if your work is written with the help of AI, it can be flagged, just like if it were checked outside Canvas. So, while Canvas doesn’t detect ChatGPT on its own, it can do so if your school has connected it to AI detection tools.
Not directly. Canvas doesn’t have the ability to detect whether you've used ChatGPT outside of its platform. So, students can still use Chat GPT for:
- Researching in parallel to studying.
- Self-education purposes.
- Quick fact-checking.
No, it can’t see your external activity. Canvas can’t track your actions on ChatGPT or any other site unless:
- Monitoring software (like a lockdown browser or proctoring tool) is in use in your college or university
- You paste obvious unedited AI-generated content into your submissions and the teacher will see right through it.
Yes, in most cases, teachers can tell if you use any AI tools. They suspect AI usage by:
- Checking for inconsistencies in writing or tone
- Tone being too technical, presenting typical AI sentence and phrase patterns
- Comparing your current work to past assignments
- Comparing your written assignments to your class responses
Not directly, but it can raise flags. Canvas itself doesn’t track whether you’re using ChatGPT or other external tools during a quiz. However, it does give teachers some insight into your activity during the test. For example, the University of Maryland’s IT Service Desk explains that Canvas keeps logs of student actions. These include things like:
- “Stopped viewing the quiz page”.
- “Resumed viewing the quiz page”.
Not really, but it can tell if you leave the quiz page. Canvas doesn’t directly track your browser tabs. However, during a quiz, it can detect when you stop viewing the quiz page. As long as you keep the quiz tab open and active, Canvas considers you present. But if your instructor enables certain settings, things can get stricter.
Canvas doesn’t “know” that you used AI unless:
- You paste AI-generated text that gets flagged later on by platform integration with Turnitin.
- Your school uses external AI-detection tools to additionally check the assignments.
Canvas uses the SimCheck feature (a Turnitin product) within a platform for AI check.
No, Canvas doesn’t track tabs by itself. But if you leave the quiz page, it logs that activity. With added tools like a lockdown browser, your tab switching can be restricted and monitored.
Not directly. Canvas doesn’t flag copy-paste actions, but if you paste a full answer into an open-ended question, it may appear in the quiz log as a sudden text entry. This can alert instructors that the response wasn’t typed manually.
Depending on the setup, professors might be able to view:
- When you start and submit the quiz
- Time spent on questions
- Quiz log record, detecting when you actively observe the question and leave the quiz page
- Flagged behaviours from proctoring tools (if used), such as tab switching.
Canvas doesn’t directly detect cheating, but it has features that help instructors spot suspicious activity:
- Quiz logs show if a student leaves or returns to the quiz page.
- Submission timestamps reveal when work was submitted.
- Turnitin integration can detect plagiarism and AI-generated text.
- External proctoring tools (like Respondus) may monitor tabs, screen activity, and webcam use.
- Instructors also check for unusual patterns or inconsistencies in student answers.
