Environment
Canvas
Perusall LTI
Issue
Information and support for the Perusall Canvas LTI
Resolution
Using Perusall at U-M
U-M has a data protection agreement with Perusall that provides for the protection of student data and privacy in Perusall. This agreement means that Perusall can be used for the maintenance and sharing of student data regulated by FERPA.
U-M ITS Perusall Service Page
In Canvas, instructors can enable Perusall by navigating to the course Settings > Navigation and scrolling down to Perusall. Right-click on Perusall and choose Enable.
Contact Perusall Support
Perusall help guides are linked below. Technical issues should go directly to Perusall's support website: https://support.perusall.com/hc/en-us (ITS does not have administrative access to Perusall.)
Email: support@perusall.com
Persusall Service Status page: https://status.perusall.com/
Perusall Help Guides - Instructors
Activate Perusall in your course site - Using left-hand navigation menu in your Canvas site.
NOTE to Instructors: It is recommended to hide the Perusall app from the left navigation after setting up your perusall assignments to eliminate any problems with grade-syncing.
Perusall Help Guides - Students
What is Perusall?
Perusall is a social learning platform that prepares students for class. The platform incorporates a novel e-book reader with collaborative annotation tools to ensure students learn more, come to class prepared, and become more engaged in the learning experience. It enables you to teach more effectively, understand student misconceptions, structure class discussion, and save time. It is based on extensive patent-pending behavioral research at Harvard University and is used by a growing number of faculty and students at different universities.
Perusall for Close Reading Engagement
Perusall is a tool that enables students to collaboratively annotate a textbook or document. Instructors can order and assign online textbooks or upload articles in the form of PDF files. Students work in groups to annotate readings and asynchronously respond to each other's comments and questions. Perusall grades students' engagement to ensure they are prepared for class and nudges those who need help to keep everyone on track. Moreover, Perusall can encourage students to help others by answering their questions, and to upvote good questions or comments to draw the attention of their classmates and instructor to important ideas. There is no cost for students to use Perusall with a textbook, beyond the cost of the book itself.
Perusall for In-Class Engagement
Perusall can be used to create collaborative lecture notes on digital content, such as slides and digital reading assignments. Annotating reading assignments helps ensure students are encouraged to do the reading, think about it in depth before class, and participate in class discussion and activities because they have already become invested in the content.
Posting lecture slides in Canvas, and allowing students to annotate them during class, has the additional benefit of collaborative engagement with and knowledge-building around the lecture material. If a GSI monitors the developing annotations, it can also become a Q&A opportunity. Developing questions can be answered either during or after lecture, and the annotated slides can become a study-guide.
Additional Information
For additional questions, please contact the ITS Service Center