Cogniti

• You must first be part of the Fall 2025 pilot Virtual Tutor Initiative.
• Wait for confirmation that your UTORid account and course has been added to the CTSI AI Virtual Tutors and that you can access the MS Teams group.
• Once you have received confirmation that your course has been added, add the Cogniti UAT access link to your Quercus course:

1. In the designated Quercus course, select “Settings” from your course menu.
2. Select the “Navigation Tab”.
3. Look for the “Cogniti UAT”, drag it up from the ‘hidden from students’ area and drop into the visible section of your course navigation list.
4. Scroll down and select the blue “save” button.

Cogniti is not available in all of your courses, only the individual course indicated when completing the expression of interest form.

• If you specifically identified additional people when completing the Expression of Interest form, they will also have create/edit access to Cogniti.  (Anyone else with TA/teacher roles in your Quercus course will receive an error message when selecting the Cogniti UAT button in your course menu.)

• Student will NOT see the Cogniti UAT button in your course menu, only other Teacher or TA and Designer roles in your Quercus course.

To login to Cogniti, access your Quercus course and select the “Cogniti UAT” link in your course menu.

This link will open up a new browser window with the full Cogniti interface at a cognitiproject URL.  DO NOT save or bookmark this cognitiproject URL, as you can not access Cogniti alone via this URL.  If you are trying to access the main Cogniti interface and receive an error message, close your tab/window and try again through the Cogniti UAT link in your Quercus course.

If you do not see the see the Cogniti UAT in your course menu, please see the instructions above “Fall 2025 pilot – accessing Cogniti for the first time” above.

Cogniti Agents are added to your Quercus course via the tools app in the Quercus Rich Text Editor.  This is how students will access your Cogniti Agent.

We recommend creating a new Quercus Page using your Cogniti Agent Name as the Page Title.

In your Quercus page, select the icon that looks like an electrical plug, and select “Cogniti UAT”:

• The electrical plug ‘apps’ icon will be beside the MS Teams and Outlook icons in the RCE toolbar.  If you do not see this icon, select the vertical ellipses (3 dots).
• You might need to select “View All” from the electrical plug ‘apps’ icon first and then select “Cogniti UAT” from the list
• If you do not see “Cogniti UAT” using any of these methods, follow the “how to login to Cogniti” instructions listed above first, and then come back and try to add your agent.

Browse the listing of agents you have created or have access to, and choose “Select this agent” to add it to your page, and save your page:

You can then link to your Cogniti Agent Quercus Page from other areas of your Quercus course such as Modules, announcements or another Page.

Everyone listed in the ‘people’ section of your Quercus course (students, TAs, etc.) can chat with this specific Cogniti Agent. 

The default settings that come with your Agent are the most desirable.  These particular settings should be checked to ensure your Agent is accessible to your students:

Chat Access:

• In the Chat Access settings area, leave the setting under “Who is authorized to chat with this agent” as “Anyone in the organization”
• You control who has access to chat with your Agent via your Quercus course.
  • By adding your agent in your Quercus course, only those with access to your specific Quercus course will have access to chat with your agent.
• This permission does not allow anyone to discover or find your Agent in any other way than through your Quercus course.
  • Only the Owner and Specified Admins (via Sharing) can find the agent.

Sharing:

• Leave the sharing options as “only the owner and specified administrators”
• If you wish to edit (co-author) your agent with other specific people, you can enter their names.  Please note, there is no tracking of changes to an Agent, so if you have multiple people editing the same agent at the same time you will not have any record of who made which changes.

Consult and check the CTSI AI Virtual Tutors MS Teams channel for additional instructor Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).