Lesson Library

The Lesson Library keeps the whiteboard lessons TutorCat has paid to make, so it can reuse them. A lesson on a general topic, such as "The human heart" for O-Level grades 9 to 12, is made once and then served to every learner who asks about that topic, at no further model cost. Students can also browse the library for free in Explore.

Every new lesson waits for you to approve it. Until then, only the student whose question made it has seen it.

Pick Library in the sidebar, under Models. While any lesson is waiting, the page opens on Pending review.

#How a lesson gets into the library

1. A student asks an explain-type question, such as "how does the heart work?".
2. A small, cheap model, the topic match job, decides whether the question is about a general topic. If it is, it names the standard textbook topic and a short title for the student's subject, curriculum and grade band. "How does the heart work" and "explain the human heart" both become the same topic.
3. Already published: the stored board is safety-screened again for this student, then they get it at once. No model draws a board.
4. New topic: the topic name and title are checked first, because a model wrote them after reading one child's question (see below). Then the whiteboard model draws a board from the topic alone: the subject, curriculum, exam board or programme, grade band and topic title. It never sees the student's words. The board is streamed to the student as usual.
5. If the board passes validation and the safety model clears it, it is stored as pending review. The student who asked keeps it: it is their own reply. No one else is served it, it does not show in Explore and it is not counted, until you approve it.

A board that is retracted or fails validation is never stored.

#When the safety model does not answer

Every safety screen first asks the safety model. If that model is slow or down, TutorCat falls back to a short list of keywords, so homework never stops. A keyword check is good enough for the one child waiting for a reply, but it can never vouch for a lesson every child will see. So:

• A new board checked only by keywords is never stored. The student still gets it, as their own reply, exactly as during any outage.
• A published lesson checked only by keywords is still served, because it already passed the safety model when it was made. The server logs a warning.
• Regenerate refuses a board the safety model did not check, and tells you to try again.

#Checks on a new topic's name and title

A new lesson's topic name and title come from a model that read the child's question. A child, or text pasted into the question, could try to steer them. Before any board is drawn under them, they must pass these checks, or the question gets a board made just for that child and nothing is stored:

• No student name. The topic and title must not contain the student's name, or any part of it three or more letters long.
• No email or web address.
• No long number of three or more digits, unless it is a year (1066, 1789) or a round number (100, 1000). "World War 2" is fine. A house or phone number is not.
• No words about the child's own life, such as "my", "mum", "friend", "lives" or "street".
• The safety model must clear the title, screened like a tutor reply. A flag, or no answer from the safety model, means no library.

A few ordinary topics can trip these checks, such as "The Wall Street Crash". That costs only reuse: the student still gets a full board of their own.

#Questions that never use the library

These are answered just for the student, exactly as before:

• anything personal: the student, people they know, places, feelings or symptoms,
• a special angle: a requested style, comparison, analogy or length,
• homework problems and photos,
• anything the safety screen flags,
• a topic whose lesson is still waiting for review. A second student who asks about it in the meantime gets a fresh board of their own, and nothing new is stored.

If the topic match job fails or gives an answer that is not a valid topic, the question simply takes the old path.

#What is in the library, and what is not

Each lesson holds the subject, curriculum, grade band, topic, title, the board and its text version, the model that made it, what it cost, and counts: how often it was served and how many 👍 and 👎 it got.

No learner data is in the library. No student, thread or message, no name or school, and never the question a child typed. Ratings are kept one per student, so a student can change their vote, but the console shows only totals, and a student's ratings are deleted with the student. There is no student to show on this page, and the page shows none.

#Find a lesson

Filter the list by status (pending review, published or hidden), subject, curriculum, grade band, or search by title. Each row shows the title, subject, curriculum, grade band, status, version, how often it was served, the share of ratings that were helpful, what it cost to make and when it was made.

Select a lesson to see the whole board, exactly as students see it.

#Review a new lesson

Open each lesson under Pending review and check:

• The title and topic. Do they name a real school topic, and nothing about a child?
• Every block of the board. Is it correct, clear and right for the grade band?

Then choose:

• Approve publishes it. From then on, every student who asks about that topic gets it, and it shows in Explore. The student who asked first now sees From the TutorCat Library under their copy.
• Hide rejects it. It is never served. The next student who asks about that topic gets a new board, which waits for review in turn.
• Regenerate draws a fresh version from the same topic. The new version waits for review too.

A topic has at most one lesson that is published or pending. Approving never makes a second live lesson for a topic.

#Hide, unhide or regenerate a lesson

Every one of these asks for a reason and is recorded in the Audit log.

• Hide takes a lesson out of the library at once. It is never served again and does not show in Explore. The next student who asks about that topic gets a newly drawn board, which waits for review.
• Also remove from children's sessions, in the Hide dialog, also replaces every copy students already have. The copy stays in its place in each conversation, but its board is removed and its text becomes a calm line: "Let's try that a different way. Can you tell me which part you're stuck on?" Parents see that line in the transcript too. The option is ticked for you when your reason mentions safety, such as "unsafe", "inappropriate" or "personal details", and unticked otherwise. You can change it before you confirm. The audit row says whether you chose it and how many copies there were. Without it, students who already have the lesson keep their copy, because it is theirs.
• Remove from children's sessions, on a lesson that is already hidden, does the same for a lesson you hid without it, or one TutorCat hid itself (below).
• Unhide puts a hidden lesson back. It is refused while the topic has another published or pending lesson.
• Regenerate draws a new version from the same topic with the whiteboard model and hides the current one. The new version waits for review. Use it when a lesson is wrong or unclear.

#Lessons TutorCat hides itself

Every published lesson is safety-screened again each time it is about to be served. If that screen flags it, the student gets the calm line instead and never sees the board. TutorCat also hides the lesson at once, so no other student gets it. It shows as hidden with the reason "auto: failed a later safety screen" and no administrator's name.

Open it, read the board, then:

• if it is unsafe, use Remove from children's sessions to replace the copies students already have, and Regenerate if the topic needs a lesson;
• if the screen was wrong, Unhide it.

#What the library has saved

Overview has a Lesson Library card with four figures:

• Lessons: how many are published.
• Pending review: how many new lessons wait for you. Select the number to open the queue.
• Serves (7 days): how many times library lessons were served in the last 7 days.
• Est. saved: for each lesson, every serve after the first saved what the lesson cost to make. The card adds those up: (serves − 1) × cost, over all lessons. It is an estimate: it assumes each of those students would otherwise have had a new board drawn at the same price. It does not subtract the small cost of the topic match and safety-screen calls.

#Settings

Both are in Settings.

• lesson_library_enabled is on by default. When it is off, the tutor neither serves nor adds library lessons: every board is drawn for the student, exactly as before. Nothing is deleted, and switching it on again picks up where it left off.
• library_auto_publish is off by default, so every new lesson waits for your review. When it is on, a new lesson that passed every check above is published at once, with no review, and so is a regenerated one. Leave it off unless you have a reason. The checks are a backstop, not a substitute for a person reading the board.