How to enhance existing courses using CYPHER Agent

How to enhance existing courses using CYPHER Agent

Overview

Already have a course? CYPHER Agent helps you make it even better. Think of it as your AI co-creator for upgrading content—adding new modules, fresh assessments, gamification, and skills mapping in just a few clicks. It’s the easiest way to transform good courses into great ones.

Before taking your courses to the next level with CYPHER Agent, make sure it's installed and enabled on your platform. To learn more, visit the CYPHER Agent for administrators article.

Adding content to existing courses

CYPHER Agent can rapidly create new content to help you improve your existing courses. 

Within existing courses, CYPHER Agent can create:
  1. Skills
  2. New modules or lessons
  3. Quiz assessments
  4. Glossaries
  5. Study guides
  6. Games

Adding skills

To add skills to a course using CYPHER Agent:
  1. Access an existing course or class.
  2. Click the CYPHER Agent floating icon.
Info
Please note the business platform uses the term skills, and the academia platform uses the term competencies. The terms skills and competencies are interchangeable in this article.

Course, Modules navigation menu open, Section content with CYPHER Agent floating icon visible
  1. Click Add skills.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add skills highlighted

The Add skills popup opens.
  1. Name the new skills.
  2. Add an optional Code.
  3. Add a Description for the skills.
  4. Select a Library for the skills to be stored.
  5. Click Save.
Add skills pop-up

The CYPHER Agent menu opens.
  1. Enter the Topic and the number of skills to generate.
    1. The minimum number of skills allowed is five and the maximum is 30.
  2. Click Continue.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add skills, Settings with Continue button highlighted

The CYPHER Agent disclaimer screen displays.
  1. Read through all points about CYPHER Agent.
  2. Review the estimated credits needed and the current number of credits available.
  3. If you do not have enough credits to complete the task, a warning will appear and the Create button will be disabled.
  4. Click Create.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add skills disclaimer

You will receive a notification when the CYPHER Agent task has completed.
  1. Click the link in the notification message to review the generated content.
Automatic notification pop-up with Click here highlighted

Adding modules or lessons

You can use CYPHER Agent to create new modules for existing courses. To add modules to an existing course, the course must already have skills or competencies. CYPHER Agent uses those course skills, along with the information entered in the CYPHER Agent menu, to generate new modules that align with the course content.

To add modules to an existing course:
  1. Access the course.
  2. Ensure the course has skills/competencies.
    1. If not, add skills to the course.
  3. Click the CYPHER Agent floating icon.
  4. Click Add one or more modules.
InfoPlease note the business platform uses the term modules, and the academia platform uses the term lessons. The terms modules and lessons are interchangeable in this article.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add one or more modules highlighted

The CYPHER Agent menu opens directly to the General tab.

  1. Enter the Topic for the new module.
  2. Select an Author persona, Proficiency level, Age group, and Writing style.
  3. If you have additional information, direction, or prompts for CYPHER Agent regarding the creation the module, enter it in the Additional instructions field.
  4. If you would like the new modules to be based on an existing document, click the Custom data tab.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add one or more modules, General tab open


To use custom data in the generation of your course:
  1. Click the Custom data dropdown arrow to expand the section.
  2. Select the Yes radio button.
The Select files button becomes available, allowing you to choose files to use as a source in the creation of the course.
  1. Click + Select files.
  2. Upload a file, which will be used to help create the new module(s).
  3. If you would like to upload additional files, click Select files again.
  4. Click the Restrict to provided content? checkbox if you would like the new modules to be based solely off the information in the uploaded file(s).
By default, the following selections are enabled if you upload custom data:
  1. Extract competencies: Extract course skills from the custom data source.
  2. Extract module outline: Create a module outline based on the custom data source.
  3. Extract section content: Create content for each section based on the custom data source.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add one of more modules, Custom data tab open

The next tab in the CYPHER Agent menu is Skills. When creating new modules for an existing course, the skills already associated with the course display.
  1. Select from one or more skills that are currently associated with the course to associate with the new module(s).
  2. Then click the Modules tab.
Info
Please note that you must have skills/competencies in the course in order to generate new modules. If no skills display, close the Add one or more modules flow and add skills to the course.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add one or more modules, Skills tab open

The Modules tab displays.

  1. First, determine how many modules or lessons should be created for the course.
    1. The number of new modules is set to Auto by default. This allows CYPHER Agent to determine the ideal number of modules based on course content, style, and duration.
    2. If you select Custom, you must choose how many modules should be generated. The default number is 10 modules, with a minimum number of one and a maximum of 20.
Next, determine if you would like AI to generate the tile images used for the course and modules.
  1. AI module tile images?: By default, module tile images are generated using AI.
    1. If you select No, module tile images will be populated using images from the Web.
  2. Image Style: Click the Image style drop-down arrow to select the style of image for the course and module tiles. Photographic is selected as the default image style. 
To move to the final section:
  1. Click the Sections tab.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add one or more modules, Modules tab open
The Sections tab displays.
  1. Select how many pages of content you would like per module.
    1. By default, the number of pages is set to Auto, allowing CYPHER Agent to determine the optimal page count for each module. This is the recommended setting, as different topics may require more or fewer pages to present the content effectively.
    2. If you select Custom, you must select how many pages should be generated per module. The default number is three pages, with a minimum number of one and a maximum of seven.
      1. Note that if you select a custom number, all modules will have the same number of pages. 
  2. Crosscheck content with another AI: Select Yes if you would like to verify the information generated by CYPHER Agent using another AI system.
    1. When enabled, crosscheck will verify the information pulled from the first AI system against another AI to verify accuracy.
  3. Include Images: Select Yes to have images added to the course.
    1. If you select Yes, the Image source drop-down displays.
      1. The default image source selection is Web, which will include images from Google in the course.
      2. Select Generate with AI to have AI generated images throughout the course. 
      3. If you uploaded a custom data file, you can select Custom data to have images from your file(s) used in the course.
  4. Include Videos: Select Yes to have videos added from YouTube. 
  5. Freeform assessment: Determine if you would like to include freeform (or essay) assessments.
  6. Quiz assessment: Determine if you would like to include quiz assessments in the module.
  7. Individual project assessment: Determine if you would like to add an optional individual project assessment.
  8. Group project assessment: Determine if you would like to add an optional group project assessment.
  9. Click Continue.
Info
If you would like additional information about any of these options, check out the Creating with CYPHER Agent article.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add one or more modules, Sections tab open
The CYPHER Agent disclaimer screen displays.
  1. Read through all points about CYPHER Agent.
  2. Review the estimated credits needed to complete the task and the current number of credits available.
    1. If you do not have enough credits to complete the task, a warning will appear and the Create button will be disabled.
  3. Click Create.

Adding a quiz assessment

To add a quiz assessment to an existing course:
  1. Access the course.
  2. Click the CYPHER Agent floating icon.
  3. Click Add a quiz assessment.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a quiz assessment highlighted
The Add Quiz assessment popup appears.
  1. Add a quiz Title.
  2. Add the Max score, Category, Start date and associated Module or lesson.
  3. Select a number of Max attempts, if you will Allow late assessments submissions, a Grading setting, a Due date, and a Grading scale.
  4. Type Instructions for learners or students.
  5. Click Save.
    1. Notice that the Get assistance from CYPHER Agent checkbox is selected by default.
Add Quiz assessment pop-up

The CYPHER Agent menu opens.
  1. Enter the Topic of the assessment and select the Level, Audience, and add any Additional instructions.
  2. Select the number of each type of question for the assessment:
    1. Multiple choice questions
    2. Fill in the blank questions
    3. True or false questions
    4. Note: The number of individual question types allowed when creating a quiz assessment ranges from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 50.
  3. Select the Language to be used for the assessment. The language defaults to the language associated with the course.
  4. Then, expand the Skills tab.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a quiz assessment, Settings tab open

The Skills tab displays.
  1. Select skills to associate with the quiz.
    1. Note - you must choose from the existing skills associated with the course.
  2. Click Continue.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a quiz assessment, Skills tab open

The CYPHER Agent disclaimer screen displays.
  1. Click Create.
  2. You will receive a notification when the quiz assessment has been created.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a quiz assessment disclaimer

Adding a glossary

To add a glossary to a course:

  1. Access the course.
  2. Click the CYPHER Agent floating icon.
  3. Click Add a glossary from the CYPHER Agent menu.

CYPHER Agent menu, Add a glossary highlighted 
The CYPHER Agent Add a glossary section displays.
  1. Enter a Topic for the glossary.
  2. Select a Level, an Audience, and add any Additional instructions.
  3. Select the Language to be used for the glossary. The language defaults to the language associated with the course.
  4. Click Continue
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a glossary, Settings

The CYPHER Agent disclaimer screen displays.

  1. Click Create.
  2. You will receive a notification when the glossary has been generated. 
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a glossary disclaimer

Adding a study guide

To add a study guide to the course:

  1. Access the course.
  2. Click the CYPHER Agent floating icon.
  3. Click Add a study guide.

CYPHER Agent menu, Add a study guide highlighted

The CYPHER Agent Add a study guide section opens.
  1. Enter the Topic for the study guide.
  2. Select a Level, an Audience, and add any Additional instructions.
  3. Select the Language to be used for the study guide. The language defaults to the language associated with the course.
  4. Click Continue.

CYPHER Agent menu, Add a study guide, Settings

The CYPHER Agent disclaimer screen displays.
  1. Click Create.
  2. You will receive a notification when the study guide has been generated.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a study guide disclaimer

Adding a game

To add a game to the course:

  1. Access the course.
  2. Click the CYPHER Agent floating icon.
  3. Click Add a game.

CYPHER Agent menu, Add a game highlighted

The Add game popup appears.
  1. Name the game.
  2. Select how learners will level up through the game.
  3. Click Save.

Add game pop-up

The CYPHER Agent Add a game section appears.
  1. Enter the Topic.
  2. Determine the number of Levels needed for the game.
  3. Select the Language to be used for the game. The language defaults to the language associated with the course.
  4. Click Continue.

CYPHER Agent menu, Add a game, Settings

The CYPHER Agent disclaimer screen displays.
  1. Click Create.
  2. You will receive a notification when the CYPHER Agent game has been created.
CYPHER Agent menu, Add a game disclaimer
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