Project Firefly, a Carmen AI assistant, is an instructor-controlled AI tool that integrates directly into CarmenCanvas. It provides students with immediate, course-specific support while giving instructors flexible ways to enhance learning and streamline common interactions.
Launched in autumn 2025, Project Firefly is in active development. OTDI continues to refine the tool based on instructor and student feedback, with the goal of creating a collaborative AI system that evolves alongside teaching needs. Ohio State employees with an instructor designation can access information about the tool.
What is the Carmen AI Assistant?
The Carmen AI Assistant uses files already available in your CarmenCanvas course to generate responses to student questions. Depending on how you configure it, the assistant can help students:
- Reflect on course concepts
- Study and prepare for assessments
- Generate ideas or practice applying knowledge
- Find course information such as policies, schedules, or assignment details
Instructors maintain full control by defining the assistant’s role, behavior, personality, and boundaries through customizable system prompts. Students can only access the assistant within the course, and it can only reference the same files students can view.
Key Features
Currently, instructors can:
- Create multiple assistants and assign them to specific courses
- Explore, copy, and adapt sample assistants
- Use the assistant within this app or directly in CarmenCanvas
As we continue to develop the tool, we will eventually give instructors the ability to look at usage reporting and see insights into how students interact with the assistant. The Carmen AI Assistant draws on general knowledge from its training data and retrieves information from files available to students in your CarmenCanvas course. It cannot access content beyond what students can see.
Because Project Firefly is still in development, some features are not yet available or fully implemented across all instructional settings. We welcome discoveries and feedback.
Getting Started
If you’d like to explore the Carmen AI Assistant’s features and use it in a course:
- Complete the Project Firefly survey describing your use case.
- The Learning Systems team will enable the tool as an External Tool in your selected course.
- You’ll receive an email with instructions for making the assistant available to students.
When added to a course, the assistant is disabled by default and must be enabled within a module before students can access it.
Teaching with Project Firefly
Before using the assistant, consider your pedagogical goals and comfort level with AI tools. The app includes sample system prompts you can review, copy, and adapt. While some have worked well in other courses, every course is different, and prompts will require refinement.
AI tools don’t work the same way every time, so results may vary. Approach Project Firefly with curiosity and care, and share feedback to help improve the tool. Some examples of how you may want to use it:
- Answering common questions about course logistics and assignments
- Supporting exam preparation or review activities
- Interacting with students as part of an assignment
- Presenting simulated scenarios for student analysis or response
Questions or Feedback?
During this beta period, please email questions about the Carmen AI Assistant to the development team.