How it works
- Step 1
Create an assignment
Write the prompt and the deadline, and say how the chatbot is allowed to help.
- Step 2
Share one link
Copy Link on your dashboard hands you the single URL your students open.
- Step 3
Students write with the chatbot
They draft in the editor with the chatbot beside them, and every turn is recorded.
- Step 4
Watch and replay sessions
Read the class table, open a summary, or play a whole session back in the editor.
One assignment, one link
Write the prompt, set the deadline, and hand out a single URL. Everything a student needs is behind it.
- Assignment Details takes a Title, Markdown Instructions (bold, italic, headings, lists), an optional rubric (Use Rubric), and a Deadline that comes prefilled seven days out at 11:59 PM.
- Copy Link on your dashboard hands you the assignment's share URL and flips to Copied. There is nothing for students to install and no roster to upload.
- The dashboard lists every assignment you own with its deadline and how many students have started, so the link and the count live in the same row.
Set how the chatbot helps
AI Assistant Settings is where you write the instruction the chatbot works from on this assignment, and decide what it is allowed to reach for. You can change it later from the assignment's Edit page.
- How the AI should help arrives prefilled with a supportive writing coach: brainstorm, organise, revise for clarity, improve grammar, and do not write the full assignment for them. Edit it, replace it, or open Hint for five ready-made lines such as Keep each reply under 50 words. The field is required, and clearing it puts the coach back.
- Also give the AI the assignment instructions appends your assignment instructions to that text under an Assignment Instructions: heading, so the chatbot answers against the actual task rather than the topic in general.
- Allow Web Search lets students use real-time web search during the session, and Strictly Block External Paste stops outside clipboard content before it can be inserted into the editor. All three checkboxes are off unless you turn them on.
What students see
An editor on one side, the chatbot on the other, in a split view they drag. Instructions stay one click away, and the paste policy is stated on screen.
- The editor opens on Start writing your essay here…; the chat box on Ask for help with your essay…
- View Instructions and View Rubric open above the editor, and autosave reads Saving… → Saved → Ready. Students can resubmit any time before the deadline.
- A badge in the header always states the paste policy in force — External Paste: Blocked or External Paste: Allowed. Text the chatbot itself produced is recognised and let through either way.
The class at a glance
One table per assignment, a summary for each student, and a replay of the whole session in the editor it was written in.
- Columns for who started, who is still working, submissions, chatbot questions and pastes — internal ones in green, external ones in red. Search matches essay text and question text, not just names.
- A summary gives active time next to total elapsed, the word count split into student-written and AI-generated, and an internal-versus-external paste matrix.
- A replay plays the writing back at 0.5x to 20x with a marker at every typing burst, chat turn, paste and submission, and can compress the idle gaps.
Getting started
Making an instructor account
1 · Sign Up
The sign-in card has Login and Sign Up. Sign Up asks for your First Name, Last Name, Email and the Instructor or Administrator Passcode.
2 · Set your password
A verification link arrives by email. Opening it takes you to Set Your Password and Complete Registration — eight characters or more, with an uppercase, a lowercase and a number.
3 · You land on the dashboard
Setting the password signs you in and drops you on your dashboard, ready to create the first assignment. Every later sign-in lands in the same place.
The passcode is not optional for you
The passcode field is labelled (Optional), but a signup without one becomes a student account, not an instructor one. Get the instructor passcode from whoever runs your SWAG install, and enter it before you submit. Only .edu email addresses are allowed.
What students need
The link alone is not quite enough: the share page asks students to Enter Your Information and sign up the same way, with a verification email and a password of their own. After that a returning student sees Continue as {name} and picks up where they left off.
The words the app uses
- Share link
- The one URL per assignment that you copy from your dashboard and give students.
- Instructions / Rubric
- The prompt students write to, and the optional rubric beside it. Both stay one click away above the editor.
- How the AI should help
- The instruction the chatbot works from on this assignment. It arrives prefilled with a writing coach, and you can change it per assignment.
- Internal vs external paste
- Text copied from inside SWAG — the chatbot's own reply, the instructions, the student's draft — counts as internal. Anything from outside is external, and is logged whether or not you block it.
- Session
- One student's work on one assignment: the draft, the chat and the recording of how both were made. They can submit and resubmit any time before the deadline.
- Replay
- A recorded session played back in the editor, with the chat beside it and a marker at every typing burst, chat turn, paste and submission.