Using Hypothes.is for Social Annotation in Canvas for Faculty

The Hypothesis plug-in in Canvas allows students to annotate readings directly in Canvas. Instructors can assign and grade using the Canvas SpeedGrader. Hypothesis also enables the creation of small reading groups using Canvas’ Groups functionality, providing you the flexibility to build and manage your student reading groups.

This plug-in is already integrated into Canvas at St. Edward's University, so there’s no need for additional code. Hypothesis creates private groups for your class that are separate from the public Hypothesis tool.

Social annotation helps students better engage in digital texts through shared highlighting and comments. In online classes, this interaction can replace shared reading of texts in the face-to-face classroom. It can be especially helpful when students are approaching new kinds of texts like academic articles.

What Can Be Annotated with Hypothesis in Canvas? 

The Hypothesis Canvas plug-in can be used to annotate two types of files in Canvas:

1. PDFs: Be sure the PDFs contain machine-readable text. Scanned images of documents will not work. Hypothesis provides a free tool to convert scanned PDFs into machine-readable text. PDFs can be loaded into Canvas or accessed from Google Drive, or use the Google Drive access to upload them from your computer.
2. Websites: The websites must be openly available online and not behind a login.  

Example Uses of Hypothesis 

• Have students annotate your syllabus.
• Pre-populate a text with questions for students to reply to in annotations or notes elucidating important points as they read. 
• Have students look up difficult words or unknown allusions in a text and share their research as annotations. 
• Have students highlight, tag, and annotate words or passages they find confusing. 
• Have students identify formal textual elements and broader social and historical contexts at work in specific passages. 
• Have students share their personal opinions on a controversial topic as discussed by an article.  

See more examples at Hypothesis: 10 Ways to Annotate with Students.

Hypothesis Support for Students and Instructors

Hypothesis provides support directly to faculty and students via their Help website.
Users can

• Access the extensive and growing knowledge base
• Request help directly by creating a support ticket

Other ways to get help

• Email support@hypothes.is
• Request help directly from inside Hypothesis by clicking "?" and then "New support ticket."
• Find detailed information on submitting a support ticket to Hypothesis in their support article on How to Send Us Your Environmental Information.

Instructions for Students for Using Hypothesis 

Hypothesis is easy to use, but students will need guidance the first time they use it. Here are some resources:

• A student guide to using Hypothesis in Canvas
• Annotation tips for students

Pedagogical Resources for Instructors

• Guides for using Hypothesis in the classroom
• Free admission to Hypothesis AnotateED events
• Check out the Liquid Margins show!

Setting up a Canvas Assignment in Hypothesis 

Set up your Hypothesis assignment by creating an assignment, setting the type to External Tool and selecting Hypothesis from the list of available tools. Hypothesis provides more detailed Instructions for Setting up an Assignment in Canvas.

Tips for setting up an assignment

• Check the box for "Open in a new tab" so students get a bigger page for navigation. 
• PDF documents may be easier for you and your students to navigate.  
• Once you have set up the assignment, use Student View in Canvas to ensure it functions properly.
• If you would like to use a rubric with your Hypothesis assignment, you need to create the assignment, add the rubric and save it before selecting the external tool submission type.

Setting up a Group Assignment

1. Make sure you configure your Canvas Groups before creating a new Hypothesis reading.
   • More information about creating and using Canvas Groups can be found here: What are Groups? - Instructure Community.
2. When creating a new Hypothesis reading, either as an assignment or part of a module, you will be prompted during set-up to choose to configure the reading as a group assignment.
3. At this window, check the box to indicate this is a group assignment and select an existing Canvas Group Set that reflects your desired reading groups from the drop-down list.
4. View detailed instructions with screenshots here: Using Canvas Groups to Create Hypothesis Reading Groups.
5. See 5 Ways to Use the New Hypothesis Canvas Groups Integration.

Grading Hypothesis Assignments

When grading, instructors can view all the annotations on a text or made by a single student.

Note: Students will not "submit" the assignment, and the submission time may look odd (e.g., Dec 31, 2000). Instead, once a student has added an annotation, their results will appear in the SpeedGrader window. Each annotation will display an accurate date. Grades from Hypothesis will automatically be added to your Canvas Gradebook. See Grading Student Annotations in Canvas for more details.

Copying Canvas Courses with Hypothesis Assignments

Most Hypothesis readings in Canvas are now compatible with the Canvas Course Import tool. If your Assignment or Module was created using a publicly accessible URL or a PDF stored in Google Drive, it should work properly when copied into another Canvas Section or Course.

If your Assignment or Module was created using a PDF from Canvas Files, copying it won’t update the file link. Therefore, the new reading will continue to look for the old file in the old course. Hypothesis displays an error message when this happens. To correct it, you will need to relink your reading. Follow these directions to Fix a Broken Canvas File Link for an assignment.