How Curriculus works

This page is for the people who would set up and run Curriculus at your college, such as an AI, innovation or instructional design team. The page explains what Curriculus is, who does what, how the work gets checked, what your team needs and the terms.

Syllabus and readings in.Course materials out.

The line shows the nine steps. The dot pauses at each step that a person on your staff, called the Curriculus Lead, approves.

Pages from a course built with Curriculus

These pages come from Introduction to General Psychology. Select a page to read it.

On this page

What Curriculus is

Curriculus is a set of written instructions for AI assistants, the same kind of AI tools that many people now use to draft writing. The instructions walk the AI through building a course in nine steps, from the syllabus to the slides, and they make the AI check its work against the course readings.

AI tools can draft a lesson in minutes, but a whole course trips them up. They lose track of a long course, so a lesson late in the term can contradict a decision made in week one. They also make things up, such as a quotation or a page number that isn't in the reading.

Curriculus guards against both problems. Curriculus breaks the course into small steps, keeps one record of every decision the instructor approves, and checks the citations and quotations against the readings before the instructor sees a draft.

Building a new course, or rebuilding an old one, takes an instructor many hours of planning and writing: a course plan, a guide for each class, test questions and slides. Curriculus takes on most of that drafting, so the instructor can spend that time on the decisions only the instructor can make.

Who stays in charge

The instructor decides. The instructor sets what students learn, in what order and how, and Curriculus builds from those decisions. Curriculus asks the instructor about the course at five points along the way.
The AI drafts and checks. One AI writes each draft, and a second AI checks the draft. Automatic checks compare every citation in the lesson materials with the page it cites.
A person approves every file. A person on your staff, called the Curriculus Lead, reads and approves each file before the instructor sees the file. The instructor then reviews the materials, asks for any changes and teaches the course.

The instructor never has to use the AI. The Lead carries the AI's questions to the instructor and the instructor's answers back.

Why Curriculus is free

Faculty already carry a heavy load, and building a course often takes their evenings, weekends and summers. curriculus, LLC, the company behind Curriculus, gives Curriculus to colleges and universities for free, because our goal is to give faculty that time back.

Some schools are already building their own approach to AI. Curriculus can help those schools move faster. A school can use Curriculus as it is, change Curriculus to fit its own needs, or use Curriculus as the starting point for a better tool of its own.

Schools that need more than a short answer by email can hire us to coach their team in a sprint of up to two months. Schools that would rather hand off the work can hire us to build their courses through curriculus.com. Schools are welcome to run Curriculus on their own for free, without buying coaching or course building from curriculus, LLC.

We keep coaching short on purpose, because our goal is a team that runs Curriculus on its own.

Where the instructor steps in

The instructor shapes the course at five points. The instructor never has to work with the AI directly: the Curriculus Lead carries every question to the instructor and every answer back.

Before Step 1: what the course already has. The instructor sends whatever the course has, such as the syllabus, the course requirements, the readings, and any notes or slide decks. Curriculus can start from as little as an idea for a course, and Step 1 drafts what's missing for the instructor to confirm. Curriculus works best when the course already has its accreditation requirements, professional competencies, learning goals and assigned textbooks. The lesson guides, questions and slides draw on the assigned readings, so a course that starts as an idea needs its readings chosen before Step 2. Curriculus builds from the instructor's files and never edits the originals.
Step 1: the course overview and the vision for the course. Curriculus asks the instructor questions until it understands the course. The instructor confirms the big themes that organize the course, which Curriculus calls learning domains. The instructor also confirms or corrects each item that Curriculus added to the overview, and the overview lists those items in its final section. The instructor then keeps the overview as their own course document.
Step 4: the order of the course. When the order of units skips something students need, Curriculus proposes a short extra lesson, called a bridge lesson, and the Lead can send the proposal to the instructor to accept or turn down.
Step 5: the Course Navigator. The instructor opens a web page that shows each unit's place in the course and confirms each placement. A placement the instructor wants changed goes back through Step 4.
Steps 6 to 8: lesson guides, assessments and presenter decks. Each lesson guide and assessment ends with "Questions for you," and each deck puts its questions in the notes of its last slide. The instructor answers those questions, chooses and edits the assessment questions the class needs, and asks for any changes before teaching from the materials.

Who acts as the Curriculus Lead

Every course needs one person to act as the Curriculus Lead. The Lead runs each step, carries questions between the AI and the instructor, and approves every file before the instructor sees the file. Your school can fill the Lead's role in one of two ways.

Your own team runs Curriculus. An instructional designer or a member of your school's AI team acts as the Lead, and your school's technical team installs Curriculus and sets up the AI assistants and computers that Curriculus runs on. Curriculus is free on this path. If your team has a short question while it runs Curriculus, you're welcome to write to hello@curriculus.org. We answer short questions at no charge when we can. For more than a short question, curriculus, LLC can coach your team in a sprint of up to two months, which usually costs about $25,000. During the sprint, we consult on your school's needs, show your Lead how each step works and help your team build its first courses with Curriculus. Every school's needs differ, so write to hello@curriculus.org to discuss yours.
curriculus, LLC runs Curriculus for you. A course designer at curriculus, LLC acts as the Lead and works with your instructors on each course, as a paid service. Your school doesn't need to request a copy on this path. See curriculus.com for how the service works and what a course costs.

What review changes

The quotation check catches words that don't match the reading. The quotation check can't catch a draft that changes what the reading means, and the second AI's review exists for that kind of problem.

In the pilot course, a lesson guide draft said the textbook lists "six conditions under which a punishing consequence is effective." On page 24, the reading says "Effective punishment tends to happen when the consequence:" The reviewing AI flagged that the draft had made a qualified statement sound absolute, and the fix restored the qualification.

Draft"six conditions under which a punishing consequence is effective"

After review"six conditions under which a punishing consequence tends to be effective"

These quotations come word for word from the Step 6 record in the walkthrough. One finding shows the kind of problem that review catches. One finding doesn't show that every draft is free of errors.

What the checks can and can't establish

Each check has one job. None of the checks replaces your faculty's own review of accuracy and teaching quality.

Scripts: Each citation points to a reading and a page, and each quotation of eight words or more appears on the page it cites.The scripts don't establish that every claim is supported, or that the reading itself is accurate and current.
Second AI: A second AI, starting fresh, reads each draft against the readings and the course plan and records its findings. Each serious finding needs a fix or a ruling from the Lead before the step can close.The second AI doesn't replace an independent expert's review, and its review doesn't show that no errors remain.
Curriculus Lead: A person on your staff reads and approves each file before the instructor sees the file.The Lead's approval isn't expert review in the subject, and the approval doesn't show that the materials improve learning.

The nine steps

The table shows what each step produces, how the work is checked and what the instructor does. "Automatic checks" means software checks the work. "AI review" means a second AI checks the work. "Lead" means the Curriculus Lead reads and approves the work after those checks.

The walkthrough shows real records from each step: the checks, the reviewers' findings, the fixes and the approvals. Select a step's name to see its records.

Step	Name	What the step produces	Checked by	What the instructor does
0	New course	The course folder and a copy of each file the instructor sent	Automatic checks	Sends the syllabus, requirements, readings, and any notes or decks
1	Course overview	The instructor's course overview, with an appendix	Automatic checks, AI review, Lead	Answers questions, confirms the course's big themes and confirms or corrects what Curriculus added
2	Reading analysis	A digest of each unit's readings, with page numbers	Automatic checks, AI review	No action needed
3	Reading map	A map of the readings across the course	Automatic checks	No action needed
4	Curriculum structure	Each unit's place in the course and the units it builds on	Automatic checks, AI review, Lead	Accepts or turns down a bridge lesson, when Curriculus proposes one
5	Course Navigator	A web page where the instructor confirms each unit's place in the course	Lead	Confirms each unit's place in the course
6	Lesson guides	One guide for each unit	Automatic checks, AI review, Lead	Answers the guide's questions and asks for any changes
7	Assessments	A bank of up to twenty questions for each unit, with answers and guidance	Automatic checks, AI review, Lead	Answers the bank's questions, then chooses and edits the questions the class needs
8	Presenter decks	A PowerPoint deck for each unit and week, with speaker notes	Automatic checks, AI review, Lead	Answers the questions in the last slide's notes and asks for any changes

Who does what

Curriculus gives each job a name. People fill two of the jobs, and AI assistants fill the other three.

Instructor: The instructor decides the course facts, the sequence and the teaching choices.A person, usually a faculty member
Curriculus Lead: The Lead starts each step, relays questions to the instructor and approves every file before the instructor sees the file.A person on your team, such as an instructional designer, or a course designer at curriculus, LLC
Orchestrator: The Orchestrator runs each step for the Lead and starts the Author and the Reviewer. The Orchestrator never writes course content.An AI assistant
Author: The Author reads the course files, writes the step's output and checks its own work.An AI assistant
Reviewer: The Reviewer checks the Author's work, starting fresh, and usually runs on an AI from a different company than the Author's AI.An AI assistant

What your technical team needs

This section is for the people who set up Curriculus. Instructors can skip it.

An AI assistant that can open a folder of files, such as Claude Code or Codex. The Reviewer usually runs on an AI from a different company than the Author's AI, so most teams use both assistants.
A computer with Python 3, plus three free tools: pandoc for the Word files, and LibreOffice and poppler for the slide pictures. The setup script names any tool that's missing.
Someone on your school's technical team to install Curriculus and set up the AI assistants.
One person to act as the Curriculus Lead for each course.

$ ./setup.sh
Setup done.
$ open PROCEDURE.md

Terms

Curriculus uses the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. This summary helps you read the license, and the license controls wherever the two differ.

Allowed

Colleges, universities and other schools may use Curriculus, change it and share it with other schools, all at no cost.
The courses you build with Curriculus belong to you and your school. The license makes no claim on those courses.

Not allowed without a commercial license

Companies may not sell Curriculus, charge for access to it or build it into a paid product or service.
Companies, including course-building firms, edtech vendors and consultancies that a school hired, need a commercial license to use Curriculus. To ask for a commercial license, write to hello@curriculus.org.

How joining works

Curriculus goes only to schools that accept the Curriculus Membership Agreement, and a person at curriculus, LLC reads every request. Membership is open to colleges, universities, community colleges and technical colleges that an accreditor or a government recognizes.

You request a copy with your school email address and accept the Curriculus Membership Agreement.
A person at curriculus, LLC reviews your request.
We email you a copy of Curriculus marked for your school, with a PDF of the agreement you accepted.
You run ./setup.sh and read PROCEDURE.md to start your first course.

Get started for free

Questions

Does Curriculus replace the instructor?

No. The instructor decides what students learn, in what order and how, and Curriculus drafts the materials from those decisions. The instructor reviews the materials, asks for any changes and teaches the course.

Is Curriculus really free for schools?

Yes. Colleges, universities and other schools pay nothing to use Curriculus, change it or share it with other schools. Your team does pay for its own AI accounts, and coaching from curriculus, LLC is optional and paid. The membership agreement doesn't promise later versions, answers to questions or fixes, though we may provide all three. The section Why Curriculus is free explains how curriculus, LLC earns money.

Will curriculus, LLC approve our request?

We approve almost every request from a college or university that an accreditor or a government recognizes. We decline a request mainly when the person doesn't work at the school or the school doesn't qualify for Curriculus membership.

Who owns the courses we build?

You and your school own them. The license makes no claim on the courses you build with Curriculus.

Can a company use Curriculus for our school?

A company needs a commercial license, even when your school hired the company. To ask for a commercial license, write to hello@curriculus.org.

Can we change Curriculus?

Yes. Your school may change Curriculus and share the changed version with other schools. The license covers the software but not the name, so you may say your version is based on Curriculus, but you may not call your version Curriculus.

Why do you mark each copy for one school?

The mark shows which school received a copy, so a copy that turns up outside that school points back to the school that received the copy.

Does Curriculus send our course files anywhere?

Curriculus itself sends your course files nowhere. Curriculus is a folder on your own computer, and its scripts send nothing over the internet apart from downloading free tools during setup. Your course files go only to the AI assistant your team chooses, under your team's own account and the AI company's terms.

Do we pay for the AI?

Yes. Curriculus itself costs nothing, but your team needs its own accounts with the AI assistants it uses, such as Claude Code or Codex, and pays whatever those plans cost.

Does the instructor have to use the AI?

No. The Curriculus Lead runs every step and carries each question to the instructor and each answer back. The instructor reads the materials and answers the Lead's questions in ordinary documents and one web page.