Following the transition from Blackboard to Canvas, students all over Oklahoma Christian University have downloaded a Chrome extension named Better Campus. Formerly known as Better Canvas, this web extension offers a variety of tools to users at no cost. However, with independently made extensions there can be some drawbacks, technical issues being one of them. What is Better Campus and why are students buzzing about it?
The Talon conducted a brief survey of 13 students and discovered that the driving force behind the extension’s popularity is word of mouth. Others found it through Google, social media, the survey itself and Claude AI. Of the 13 students surveyed, 11 had heard of Better Campus and seven currently use it. According to the Better Campus website, 210 students at Oklahoma Christian use the web extension. Students have made 69 themes, and 60 students have signed in this month.
“It makes it a lot more fun to do my homework, and I want to be more productive when I see that everything is ‘pretty,’” Madison Arnold said.
The extension works with Canvas, along with Blackboard, Brightspace, Moodle and Google Classroom. Students can pick from thousands of themes made by other users or design their own, and dark mode, which is unavailable in Canvas, is now available. Among surveyed users, themes were the most popular feature, followed by the to-do list and the GPA calculator. The extension pulls due dates from every class into one to-do list and includes a grades page where students can set a goal and see what they need on a final. Newer features include AI lecture notes, flashcards and quizzes, and a virtual pet named Campy that grows as students complete tasks. While the basic version is free, a Pro plan costs $19 a month or $119 a year and removes monthly limits.
“It’s just better. Makes me more happy to look at [Canvas] and the to-do lists are great,” Aunnesty Howell said.
“My Canvas is fun to use now,” Alexander Stockton said.
Better Campus offers services to educators as well. It includes all the regular features, such as themes, dark mode and widgets, but adds a grading page that syncs with student calendars and to-do lists as well as organizes itself by due date.
There are some inherent risks and problems that arise with third-party extensions. Glitches and limits were reported, and an anonymous student informed the Talon they had lost a quiz submission due to one such glitch.
“Sometimes the themes glitch a bit, but no major issues,” Scarlette Ortiz said.
“Very few issues. One notable issue is that theming sometimes prematurely reverts,” Stockton said.
“I would very much like it to be a Safari extension, but unfortunately it’s just on Chrome,” Elliot Greenlaw said.
Better Campus also runs on Microsoft Edge and Firefox, and the company has opened a waitlist for a Safari version. According to its website, more than 2 million students at over 500 schools use the extension.
Why are students skipping the extension? Students reported distrust of a third party viewing information on their devices, while others cited they are unmotivated or had never heard of it. Others reported negative experiences with previous extensions deterred them from hopping on the trend. According to the Better Campus website, the company does not sell user data, and the extension never posts or submits anything on a student’s behalf.
“I limit my use of browser extensions because even innocuous ones like Better Campus can be silently harvesting information,” Isaac Bradford said.
“I’m too lazy to set it up,” Katie McCook said.
Some students wish to go a step further into building their own tools for the Oklahoma Christian learning platform. Currently, due to restrictions, this is prohibited. Greenlaw said the university does not give students access to Canvas API keys, which would allow them to create their own software to keep track of their classes.
“This is totally understandable, but I am still upset that they won’t allow students to build their own software,” Greenlaw said.
Students who use the extension rated how likely they were to recommend it, giving it an average score of 4.6 out of 5. Five of the seven users gave it a perfect score.
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