ALDA was designed at USask and is approved for use.

What is ALDA?

ALDA is the acronym for AI Learning Design Assistant. It is a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) chatbot and text generation suite of apps. ALDA is powered by GPT-4 (Large Language Model).  This tool is coded for USask educators and uses USask terminology, strategies, and priorities in its responses and prompts. 

ALDA is freely available, using an USask NSID login, at https://alda.usask.ca/

For more information on what GenAI is and how it can be used to support teaching and learning, see the GenAI overview.

What is the purpose of ALDA?

ALDA is a suite of course design applications that can assist USask educators in the creation of various course components. ALDA is powered by GPT-4 API. It can help you:

  • create learning outcomes,
  • plan learning activities,
  • suggest ways to make your course and activities more inclusive,
  • align teaching and learning activities with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,
  • promote Indigenization, Decolonization, and Reconciliation,
  • offer tips for reflection.

Not what you’re looking for?

Why use ALDA?

  • ALDA serves as a "thinking partner" to generate course components. For teaching and learning, it is effective at creating and refining course descriptions, learning outcomes, assessment tasks, assessment tools (such as rubrics), and verifying inclusivity in course materials.
  • ALDA is programmed with background prompts to ask questions that an educational developer or instructional designer would ask in order to coach users through the course design process.
  • Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity principles are embedded in all generated content.
  • No history of conversations is kept. User inputs and ALDA outputs are not used to train GenAI models.
  • Users retain intellectual property rights to the user input and the ALDA output. 

Learning Technology Ecosystem (LTE) Principles

ALDA most directly address these LTE goals: 

Accessible - Learning must be found easily at any time, and all learners and teachers have equitable access, regardless of culture, language, ability etc. 

Efficient and easy to use - Learners need to work in a system that is fluid and requires a minimum number of steps in systems that are intuitive and integrated.  

Best Practices

DO

DON'T

 Interact with ALDA as a thinking partner by following the prompting instructions to create various course components.   Don't use as a GenAI plagiarism detector.
 ALDA does not save your chat history. Be sure to copy and paste any text from ALDA that you want to save.   Don't leave or close ALDA without copying and pasting any text you'd like to save.
 ALDA is most effective when you have enough time to start and finish your task in one sitting.  Don't use the output without reviewing it and making necessary edits.
 Choose the focus for your conversation with ALDA by using the menu on the left side of the page (e.g., Structure, Learning Activities, Rubrics Design, Inclusivity, etc.).
 Use ALDA to help generate course descriptions and learning outcomes. 
 Use ALDA to help create formative and summative assessment tasks, as well as assessment tools such as rubrics.
 Use ALDA to redesign existing assessment tasks to consider Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and other inclusivity and accessibility design principles.
 Use ALDA to evaluate the diversity and inclusivity of reading lists and analyze text documents for inclusive language.
 Be extremely detailed and specific in prompting and responding to the questions ALDA asks. Providing lots of context will give the best results.
 Verify that the output accurately represents the content, context, and goals of your course, program, and/or discipline.

Support for ALDA

Technical Support

(Why isn't this working?)

Not Supported 

Training Support

(How do I learn to use this tool?)

Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning Supported 
  • Email GMCTL for support in designing learning activities and assessments, consultations and related workshops.

Teaching Support

(How do I teach with this tool?)

Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning Supported
  • Email GMCTL for support in designing learning activities and assessments, consultations and related workshops.

Tool Evaluation

Technologies are evaluated based on their alignment with the Learning Technologies Ecosystem Principles.  Since ALDA is not intended to be a learning tool for students, it has not been evaluated in this way.