Perusall

Status - Approved

Approved for use.

Tool Description

Perusall is a tool that aims to change how students view the reading of material from a solitary experience to one that is engaging and collaborative with classmates and instructors. Published textbooks, open educational resources (OER), and personal instructional materials can be assigned to students with just a few clicks of a button. Perusall automatically grades students' engagement with the assigned materials and once prompted, will upload grades to Canvas.
Note: this is a basic version.

Step 1: Set Up a Perusall Course through Canvas

Create an assignment in Canvas
Name the assignment and set the point value
Under Submission Type, select External Tool
Search for Perusall
Save the Assignment and Select Load Assignment in a New Window
Set up an account and course settings in Perusall once it loads

Watch Creating a Perusall course in Canvas (1:33) for a video tutorial.

Step 2: Load Course Material into the Perusall Library

Click on Library on your Perusall course home page

To add a book from Perusall's catalog, click Add > Textbook
To upload a reading (PDF or EPUB format) from your computer, click Add > Documents from my computer or Add > Documents from Dropbox
To add a web page as a reading, click Add > Web page

Watch Adding Content to Perusall Library (1:46) for a video tutorial.

Step 3: Build Assignments from the Course Materials in your Perusall Library

Click on Assignments on your course home page from Perusall
Click Add assignment and select the course material you want to assign
Select the part of the document to assign, specify a deadline, and click Save changes

Watch Creating a Perusall Assignment in Canvas (1:35) for a video tutorial.

Step 4: Link Canvas Assignments to Perusall Assignments

Step-by-Step Guide by Perusall

Click on Assignments on your course home page from Perusall.
Click Add assignment and select the course material you want to assign.
Select it in the Assignments panel on your course home page in Perusall, and then click the Copy full title for LMS button in the toolbar
Navigate back to Canvas and add that title into your Canvas Assignment.

Note: To ensure that grade sync works throughout the semester, make sure that students access each Perusall assignment by clicking through the corresponding assignment in Canvas. If a student accesses an assignment in Perusall without ever clicking through the corresponding Canvas assignment, then Perusall will not be able to send that student's score back to Canvas.

Watch Creating a Perusall Assignment in Canvas (1:35) for a video tutorial.

Step 5: Post Grades to Canvas

View the How Scoring Works in Perusall guide for more information.

Each assignment is graded automatically as students are working. Scores for each assignment will show up in your gradebook, but will not appear to students until you have released the scores.

You can release scores in three ways:

Manually, from the gradebook, after you have reviewed the scores for that assignment.
Automatically, after the assignment deadline has passed, so you do not need to manually release scores after each assignment.
Automatically, as students are working. We generally recommend against this option, as it may lead to students attempting to “game” the system rather than participate fully in the discussions.

Best Practices for Using Perusall

We recommend not enabling the Perusall application from your course navigation as accessing your course from there and not from an assignment can break the gradebook connection.
A great way to orient your students to Perusall is to add your syllabus as a course material in the library and use that as the first assignment. Faculty that use this method state that this method sets the stage for how to use the tool on a low-stakes assignment that makes a difference as the course progresses.
Consider adding a “In case Perusall doesn’t work for you” module or section in your course if students cannot use Perusall for any assignment.
Show students to use the “No Comments” option when reading to limit any noise. This will create a “clean copy” that will allow students to focus on their reading and then enable the comments when they are ready to interact. For more information, visit How do I read a "clean copy" of the book, without the highlights?

My Grades aren't syncing to Canvas

If you see red exclamation points in the Perusall gradebook it means the grade is not syncing automatically. To fix it:

Students may be launching Perusall from the course navigation link rather than through an assignment. Remove Perusall from the navigation and have students re-enter Perusall through the appropriate assignment(s). This may take up to an hour to resync.

If you see an orange exclamation point in the Perusall gradebook it means that there was an error communicating between Perusall and Canvas. To fix it:

Click the ‘Click here to try to resync’ button in the Perusall gradebook. This may take a few hours to fully sync.

If there is no exclamation point but the grades are not syncing in the Perusall gradebook:

Grades may simply need to be released to students. Click ‘Release Grades’ at the bottom of the assignment column.

Support

For more info on this tool, please visit the Perusall support page.