Did you copy a Canvas course space from prior to April 3rd, 2023?. If so, take a look at a few steps you may need to take to get Perusall working in your course. 

About Perusall

Perusall is a tool that allows students to annotate instructor-assigned readings and post comments to each other in the interest of collaborating on difficult sections. Perusall also provides text-engagement metrics that allow instructors to see which areas of the text generated the most discussion or confusion.

You might use this to:

• Deliver reading assignments
• Engage students
• Track student progress

Perusall hosted and recorded a Student Panel that covers which features students like most about the platform. You will need to create a Perusall account in order to view this video. 

Training Webinars

How to Integrate with Canvas

These steps assume that you have already created a Canvas course space. If you have not, create a course space first.

1. Open your Canvas course space and click on “Settings”.
2. Click on “Navigation” near the top
3. There are two lists here. Drag “Perusall” from the lower list to the upper list.
4. Click “Save” at the bottom of this screen.
5. Perusall should now appear as a menu item on the left hand side of your Canvas course space.

Note: Remember to consider licensing and copyright restrictions before adding content to Perusall.

 Adding Readings to Your Course

1. Select the Library tab at the top of your course home page.
   
   
2. Click the Add content button.
   
   
3. There will be a menu on the right side of the page. Select the type of media you want to add.
   
   
4. After you’ve chosen your content, click on the green button to close the pop-up and wait for the media to upload.
   
   

 Creating Assignments

1. Select the Assignments tab at the top of your course home page.
   
   
2. Click Add assignment.
   
   
3. You will be redirected to a pop-up. Fill in what content you want to assign under the Content tab.
   
   
4. Specify a deadline and other assignment information under the Options tab. 
5. Click the green OK button. Your assignment information will show up on the right-hand side of the page.
   
   

 Viewing Discussions Within the Text

1. Navigate to your Perusall course home.
2. Open a document in the Library tab, or open an assignment in the Assignments tab.
3. When you open a document, you’ll see highlights on the document that represent comments that students have entered.
4. Highlight text by clicking and dragging. You will see a new conversation panel appear on the right side of the page. Enter a comment or question, and press Enter to save it.
5. When you start a comment thread, the text you highlighted will show in blue and student comments are highlighted in yellow.
6. When someone responds to a question or comment, the original author receives a notification by email and can post their own response by replying to the email. Students that ask a question can also indicate that one or more of the responses answers their original question.
7. Control the highlights that you see by clicking the All comments filter dropdown at the top of the page and selecting a filter.

Managing the Gradebook

Disabling Automatic Grading

Perusall’s automatic grading engine will automatically score all student work and assign an overall assignment score.  If you would like to disable automatic grading:

1. go to Settings.
2. Under the General tab, Scroll Down to Analytics.
3. Select any of the following options:
   
4. Click Save Changes.

View these scores by navigating to the Gradebook.

Navigating the Gradebook

• To see students’ scores, click Gradebook on the left-hand window.
• Click on a student’s score to see additional details about how the score was computed.
• Use the pencil icon to manually override or enter a grade for a student.
• Students will not see their scores until you release them. To release scores for an assignment, click the Release to Students button at the bottom of the page, or enable automatic grade release within Settings.