Mia Dimova, a first-year in pharmaceutical science, scrolls through her Canvas dashboard that uses BetterCampus on Sunday. Credit: Brett Shuster | Lantern Reporter
Grace Neri recalls sitting in organic chemistry, struggling with the course load during her sophomore year, with a lot on her plate.?
That’s when her friend showed her a new way to stay organized: BetterCampus.
“I just remember thinking I really wanted that visual of seeing how much I had completed for the week,” Neri, a fourth-year in medical anthropology, said.
Better Campus marketed itself with grabbing visuals and customizations. Better Campus is a browser extension that enhances Ohio State’s learning management system, CarmenCanvas. It features assignment planning, calendar syncing, grade scenario analysis, AI lecture transcription, flashcards and more.
“I asked her how she got it. She told me how to download it, and I’ve been using it ever since,” Neri said.
At Ohio State alone, there are 9,860 student accounts, seven instructors and, in the last 30 days, 1,100 new people joined the platform, said Better Campus CEO and co-founder, Jake Silver.?
Silver said the platform is known for helping students stay organized and supported, while allowing them to express creativity through customizing their Canvas dashboard.?
“We’re really good at building stuff that kids care about,” Silver said. “I am not that much older than [most students], and our whole team is really young.”
Silver mentioned many of his employees are students, so he works to build from their lens.
Students share the themes they have created for their dashboard with their friends. As well as posting on social media such as TikTok or Instagram to show how this extension has gained popularity, Silver said.?
“It’s just like an organic flywheel. I don’t market either, so the fact that we had almost 10,000 users at [Ohio State] with zero marketing is crazy and means we built something students truly love,” Silver said.
As the popularity of BetterCampus grows at the university, students shared how they use the platform.?
“I like to customize the colors of my classes, and then I use the calendar and separate it by color to plan out my schoolwork for the week,” Mia Dimova, a first-year in pharmaceutical science said.
Students also said they enjoy the ability to customize their Canvas dashboard.?
“There are 100 or more different styles you can choose for designs,” said Dimova. “It is more aesthetically pleasing to look at Canvas.”
Amy Scholes, a third-year in health science, customized her dashboard to be pink, as it is her favorite color.?
Students will especially be able to express their creativity with a new AI pet feature, which will be released in the following weeks.?
“Each student gets a digital pet, you get to name [the pet], decorate it and hatch it,” Silver said.
Another aspect of this new feature is focus groups. Your pet enters a digital study space, studies, and students can have their pets study with someone else, creating more community while completing coursework, according to Silver.
If you complete a “qualifying activity,”such as submitting something on time or making a note, students can get coins. With these coins, you can decorate your pet and its study room, such as adding furniture and buying accessories, Silver said.
Other students use the progress ring resource, which lets them see how much work they have left in a visual on their Canvas sidebar.
“I mainly use the sidebar [progress ring], but I will use it to organize notes,” Neri said. “If I have a test on paper, it’s not gonna say you have a test in three days because it’s not connected to Canvas. But I can add it to my planner and be like, hey, a little note to myself: study flashcards today.”
Students said the program keeps them organized and helps them prepare for upcoming homework and exams.?
“Without the extension, it doesn’t clearly show on Canvas when your assignments are due, and now I can clearly click on assignments and see when they’re due and what time,” Scholes said.
Many students find an issue when taking exams or quizzes on restricted Canvas modes. Platforms such as Honorlock, do not allow BetterCampus to run while testing.?
“When we have to do Honorlock or LockDown Browser, I have to disable it and delete it, then redownload it when I am done, so that’s annoying,” Scholes said.
However, there are options in BetterCampus for taking lock down browser tests.?
Quiz Safe Mode and Temporarily Disable Mode can automatically disable BetterCampus during quizzes, without uninstalling it. Students can also use BetterCampus as a website, without the extension at all, Silver said.?
“A lot of students aren’t aware of these options yet, and we want to make sure they know they don’t have to delete BetterCampus just to take a test,” he added.?
Starting off as a Chrome extension for Canvas, it has now recently expanded to Edge, Firefox and Safari. They have also expanded to student applications such as Brightspace, Blackboard, Google Classroom and Moodle.
“I think it’s a great resource, and I think it could help a lot of people organize, especially people who are incoming first-years [if] they haven’t figured out how to manage their time or how to study for exams yet,” Neri said.
