---
title: Getting started
description: What Teach Anything does for instructors, how to get an account, and the four steps to a working assistant.
sidebar:
  label: Getting started
  icon: rocket
---

This guide walks you through building an AI teaching assistant for your course, from your first login to sharing it with students. No technical background needed.

:::tip[In a hurry?]
Skip this guide and follow an [Instructor Tutorial](/tutorials) instead. Each one is a short walkthrough aimed at a single goal, and you finish with something working: a syllabus Q&A assistant in about five minutes, or a full course assistant in about fifteen.
:::

## The big picture

Think of your assistant as a tutor who has read all of your course materials and nothing else. When a student asks a question, it looks through your files, finds the relevant parts, and writes an answer that points back to the exact source. It won't make things up from the open internet, and it will tell students where each answer came from.

Every model behind that assistant is **open source**, and you choose which one your course runs on — a multilingual model, one built for STEM, one for very long documents. See [Choose an open-source LLM](/instructors/choose-a-model).

1. **Request an instructor account**

    Accounts are approved by an administrator to keep the platform limited to
    verified university professors. Please sign up with your university email
    and wait for approval. Reach out to
    [admin@teachanything.ai](mailto:admin@teachanything.ai) if your university
    or country's domain is rejected. We will have to verify your status and
    possibly manually add your domain name.

2. **Create a chatbot**

    Give your assistant a name and a short description of how it should behave.
    See [Create a chatbot](/instructors/create-a-chatbot).

3. **Add your materials**

    [Upload files](/instructors/upload-materials) or [point it at a
    website](/instructors/add-website-content). The assistant reads and
    remembers everything.

4. **Share it with students**

    [Share the permalink](/instructors/share-and-embed) or [embed the
    assistant](/instructors/share-and-embed) directly in your course site.

## Getting an account

Instructor sign-ups go through a short approval step so only real instructors get access.

1. **Sign up**

    [Create an account](https://teachanything.ai/register) with your name, email
    address, and a password. Some deployments only let certain email domains
    (like your school's) register, so use your institutional email if you have
    one.

2. **Wait for approval**

    An administrator reviews new accounts. You'll be able to log in once your
    account is approved. This is usually quick, but it isn't instant. If you try
    to sign in before then, we'll tell you your account is still waiting rather
    than just refusing the password.

3. **Log in**

    Once approved, [sign in](https://teachanything.ai/login) and you'll land on
    your [dashboard](https://teachanything.ai/dashboard), where all of your
    assistants live.

:::note[Password requirements]
Choose a strong password. The sign-up form will tell you if your password is too weak and what to fix.
:::

## What you'll manage

Once you're in, everything revolves around your [dashboard](https://teachanything.ai/dashboard):

**Your chatbots**

Each course (or topic) can have its own assistant. Create as many as you
need.

**Materials**

The files and web pages each assistant has learned from.

**Conversations**

An anonymized and searchable record of what students asked and how the
assistant answered.

**Account settings**

Your profile, privacy controls, and account deletion.

:::tip[Students can quiz themselves]
Students can ask the assistant to quiz them on a topic, and it builds an interactive practice quiz from your materials. Their results show up when you [review conversations](/instructors/review-conversations).
:::

## Next step

**[Create your first chatbot](/instructors/create-a-chatbot)**

Name your assistant, set its personality, and get ready to add materials.