Over the last few months, we’ve been working with a small group of researchers and developers on a question that some faculty struggle with:
How do I support students in conducting meaningful research in a manageable, usable way?
A challenge we’ve heard from faculty and research-active instructors is that student research is hard to manage at any scale. Data collection and analysis often end up scattered across spreadsheets, email threads, Google folders, and ad hoc workflows that are fragile, time-consuming, and difficult to sustain across courses or semesters. With freemium project management tools allowing only so many collaborators before they become prohibitively costly, those running research projects are left with few options.
We’re experimenting with an early version of a Canvas-integrated tool designed to help with exactly this problem: coordinating student research contributions, managing structured data collection, and supporting shared research projects across courses.
We’re looking for institutions, faculty, and/or researchers who:
- are currently running research-or inquiry-based projects with students,
- find themselves struggling with research logistics (data collection, coordination, tracking, etc.)
- would be interested in trying out an early tool and giving feedback
This opportunity is open to both undergraduate and graduate courses, research methods courses, lab-adjacent teaching, or interdisciplinary inquiry projects. Participation would involve using the tool for at least one ongoing project (no artificial demonstrations). Our goal is to learn from real usage—what works well, what doesn’t, what is missing, and what feels awkward. Since this is an exploratory, voluntary initiative, there is no commitment beyond the initial pilot phase.
If this sounds interesting to you or if you know a colleague who might be interested, we’d love to hear from you—please message me directly.
Thank you for your interest and for the work you’re all doing to make inquiry-based learning actually work in practice.
— Ai.
