Perusall

UPDATE: The Perusall integration with Canvas has been updated on June 13, 2024. New instructions for adding and using Perusall have been added to this page. Previous Perusall content will no longer appear in any Canvas courses prior to Summer 2024, though any grades synced from Perusall to Canvas will remain in the Gradebook and all Perusall content and comments from previous courses will remain available on Perusall's website.

About Perusall

Perusall is an annotation tool that integrates with Canvas. Perusall allows students and instructors to discuss, comment on, collaboratively mark up, and post questions on documents, PDFs of web pages, videos, or podcasts. Students can take notes and answer each other's questions directly within the text, while instructors can create assignments and groups. For articles or chapters, it is recommended that instructors first requesting material through Course Reserves in Canvas. 

Learn more about Perusall here:

• Perusall Help for Instructors Links to an external site.
• Perusall Help for Students Links to an external site.
  
  

Adding Perusall to your course

1. Log in to Canvas and navigate to the appropriate course.
2. Click on Settings at the bottom of the left navigation.
3. Click on the Navigation tab, scroll down to Perusall and drag it to the appropriate placement on the available portion of the left-hand navigation. 
4. Click Save at the bottom of the page. 
   
   

Copying Previous Courses 

Remove old Perusall Assignments

• If you are copying a previous Canvas course that used Perusall, we recommend that you select specific content Links to an external site. instead of copying the entire course. This will prevent the appearance of older Perusall assignments with broken links. When you select content, leave out any assignments that used Perusall. You will also want to remove Assignments using Perusall from any Modules in the previous course, otherwise they will come over in the course copy even if you do not select the assignments. 
• You can also simply delete the old Perusall assignments in the new course after completing a course copy.

Launch Perusall

• After following the steps above to add Perusall to your left-hand navigation, click on Perusall to launch it. The first time you launch the new version of Perusall, you will receive a message that reads: "You already have a Perusall account under the email address on file in your Learning Management System. [...] Perusall has sent you an email to confirm this operation; please check your inbox and click on the link in the email to confirm."
• Go to the message from Perusall in your email and click the blue button to "Confirm Request." 
• In Canvas, relaunch Perusall and the dashboard should appear.

Copy an existing course

• The Perusall dashboard will display an option to copy an existing course. If you wish to do this, select the course from the drop-down menu, then select the assignments and readings you wish to bring over. You can also use the previous settings if you wish.
• When you click continue, skip steps two and three and complete your preferences in steps four and five.
• At this point, your previous Perusall course will appear. In Canvas, any assignments using Perusall will also appear in the assignments area and the gradebook. 
  
  

Using Perusall in Canvas

When an instructor clicks on Perusall and authorizes the use of the tool, a matching course is automatically created on Perusall. When students click on any Perusall link in Canvas, they are automatically added to the course in Perusall. 

Review the Getting Started guide from Perusall Support Links to an external site. [skip "Creating your course" as this is process in automated in Canvas].

Setting up assignments

1. First, follow these instructions Links to an external site. for creating an assignment in Perusall.
2. Any assignments you create will then appear in Canvas.

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. 

Syncing Perusall groups with Canvas groups

If you would like to synchronize your Perusall groups with groups of students in a Canvas course, go to Settings > Grouping in Perusall, select Manually assign students to groups, and enable the option Apply groups from Canvas. Then click Save changes.

NOTE: If you already have students enrolled in the course, they will temporarily be placed in Group 1. Upon first launch of Perusall, Students will be placed in a group within Perusall matching their group within Canvas. Students not assigned to a group in Canvas will remain in Group 1 in Perusall. (If all of your students have been assigned to a group in Canvas, Group 1 will be empty once all students join the course.)

How do I enable/disable grading for my course?

Grading is enabled automatically when your course has at least 15 students participating in the course. 

If you would like to disable automatic grading, navigate to Settings > General and select any option except "Automatic grading and engagement analytics."

 

Troubleshooting

Canvas' Student View button will not work with Perusall, since Canvas doesn't send an email address to Perusall as part of that launch. To see what students will see once they launch into Perusall, utilize the Student View link on the left navigation bar within your Perusall course.

Support

For support requests, submit a request or view the user guides available here: https://support.perusall.com/hc/en-us Links to an external site.

If you have added Perusall following the above instructions and are receiving an error message in Canvas, contact canvas@northwestern.edu.