What is Perusall?
Perusall is a collaborative annotation tool that turns solitary reading assignments into collective learning activities. Perusall allows instructors to digitally assign readings to students, who then collaboratively engage with texts through annotation and commentary.
View Setting up Perusall for a Course to get started.
Migrating Perusall Courses from Before Spring 2023
Perusall was upgraded in January 2023 to streamline its Canvas integration and provide more flexible options for navigation and exporting grades to the Canvas Gradebook. If you will be using Perusall this Spring and migrating a course taught before Spring 2023, additional steps may be needed to ensure a smooth transition. Please contact centerforteaching@bc.edu with any questions.
Perusall’s description of the new integration:
“Students can use a generic Perusall link and individual assignment scores will still be sent to the LMS. You can still create individual assignment links, called “deep links” in LTI 1.3, which point to particular Perusall assignments even when the link and assignment do not have matching names. (Note: deep links are automatically created in Canvas as you create Perusall assignments.) Second, your LMS course roster automatically syncs to your Perusall course; instructors will be able to view the full roster in Perusall even before students ever launch into Perusall. That way, instructors can set up groups in advance of the start of the semester.”
Benefits of Perusall
For Students
- Fosters collaborative and thoughtful course engagement via annotation and commentary
- Provides a space for students to share questions, reflections, ideas, and connections with each other and with the instructor
- Offers an alternate mode of contributing to class discourse
For Instructors
- Ensures that students come to class prepared and having thoroughly read the material
- Allows instructor to structure lecture and discussion more efficiently around students’ prior engagement with the reading
- Includes auto-scoring feature for instructors who wish to incorporate into participation grade