PERUSALL

What is Perusall?

Perusall collaborative e-book annotation offers an interactive learning platform which can be used with many open educational resources, websites, PDF files, Word documents and select publisher materials to enable students to actively engage with assigned readings and with class members. Perusall allows instructors to ask leading questions to elicit threaded conversation around topics while still within the material. Responses and inputs allowed by Perusall include text, audio recording, video and image upload, GIFs, hyperlinks, and polling. Much like social media, students can tag their classmates in comments and add emojis to comments. In addition, quizzes can be inserted within assignments and scored based on correctness of the answer or for participation.

Perusall is fully integrated with the iCollege gradebook.

How to Access Perusall:

Perusall is available to the entire GSU community through an institutional license. You can access it through your iCollege course content modules, Existing Activities > External Learning Tools menu.

Key Features:

Multiple document types supported
Multiple inputs allowed
Social media functionality
Threaded comments
Learning analytics
Quizzing
Gradebook integration

See What Perusall Can Do:

Enable students to have in-depth discussions with peers based on relevant topics.
Create collaborative assignments for online and campus-based courses.
Engage student discussion on readings prior to class meetings.
Upload your syllabus into Perusall to allow students to ask for clarifications on policies.
Provide a platform for students to ask each other questions on the assigned materials.
Offer your students opportunities to share feedback and reflection.
Provide opportunities student engagement with the readings which can be scored automatically based on flexible and adjustable criteria, or manually.

FAQs

How does Perusall work for students?

Students can ask questions if they don't understand a concept and receive input from their peers. They may also comment on classmates' posts and express their opinions both synchronously or asynchronously.

What can instructors see on Perusall?

The Student Activity report provides instructors with a summary of the activity (active reading time, annotations, comments and up-votes) each student had in a specific assignment.

Can I copy Perusall activities from one iCollege course to another?

Yes. If you previously taught a course using Perusall, you can migrate your content to a new course, while preserving student work in the previous course.

What types of student analytics are available?

Perusall offers instructors (3) types of analytics reports to review student engagement as follows.

Comment submission time heat map
Page view report
Student activity report

The Comment submission time heat map shares data about when and at what time comments were created on the document or assignment.

The Page view report shares data on what pages were viewed and the average amount of time that was spent on a specific page. For example, it can help the instructor see if students are generally spending more time in one part of the reading than another or if there is an area where page views drop off across the reading.

The Student activity report shows various statistics about each individual student's engagement.

Does Perusall have built-in accessibility features?

Yes, Perusall supports students with accessibility concerns though a number of systems, including read-aloud options, hovering and keyboard shortcuts, screen-reader compatibility, use of Open Dyslexic Font, and others. For more information, please see the Perusall Accessibility Statement.

Can students post comments anonymously?

Yes, settings for assignments include the option for instructors to allow students to post anonymously. Sometimes, allowing students to post anonymously might facilitate a freer discussion, such as with controversial or personal topics. Whether a comment is posted anonymously does not affect scoring, and while comments may be anonymous to students, they are not anonymous to the instructor.

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Perusall in iCollege for Instructors

CETLOE Support

Workshops and Webinars
Throughout the year, CETLOE offers instructor workshops on Perusall and other learning tools. Please check the workshop schedule for instructor workshops.

If you’d like to request a custom workshop for your class on using Perusall, please fill out the Custom Workshop Set-up form.

Learning Technologists

Georgia State Faculty can request help from our CETLOE Learning Technologists for assistance with any of the GSU Supported Digital Learning Tools.

For the fastest response to your questions, please email [email protected] or call 404-413-HELP to submit a help ticket.

By submitting a help ticket, you can be sure that your questions are directed to the appropriate team members, ensuring that you get the help you need, when you need it.

For help using Perusall to support your teaching, request a digital teaching tool consultation through the faculty help request.