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.

Perusall, BC’s tech tool for collaborative annotation, will be upgraded by January 9th to streamline its Canvas integration. Two notable improvements include: 

• A new link in the left navigation menu to access Perusall from Canvas course sites
• A simplified process for exporting grades from Perusall to the Canvas grade book 

If you will be using Perusall with a course you are teaching this Spring, please wait until after January 9th to create or copy your Perusall course so the new integration will be in effect (Perusall assignments created before then for Spring 2023 sites would need to be recreated).  The process for adding readings and assigning collaborative annotations will remain the same.  Read more about the new integration, and please contact centerforteaching@bc.edu with any questions.

How Does it Work?

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