Perusall is an online social annotation platform that instructors can use to add graded or ungraded collaborative annotation and discussion assignments to a Moodle course. Instructors can upload their own text, audio, or video files or draw from Perusall's library of open-source and commercially published e-textbooks. Perusall accounts are free, although students may need to pay for access to commercially published textbooks and materials.
Before you start, you may need:
- a Instructor of record or Other editing teacher role in a Moodle course
- a Perusall instructor account (if you don't have one, you can create it when adding your first Perusall activity)
Add a Perusall activity to your Moodle course
Prefer video? See Perusall's instructor setup demo
Follow the instructions below to add a Perusall activity to your Moodle course that creates and links to a corresponding Perusall course. You and your students can click this activity to open your course's home page in Perusall.
- Log into your Moodle course and switch Edit Mode on.
- Click + Add an activity or resource in the section where you want to add the link to Perusall.
- Select Perusall from the Add an Activity or resource window.
- Type in an Activity name.
- Click Save and Display.
- Click Open in a new window to open your Perusall course in a new browser tab.
Tip: Whenever this Perusall activity is launched, Perusall adds or removes people from the Students tab in the Perusall course if needed so that it matches the current Participants list in the Moodle course.
Set up your Perusall course
Your new Perusall course opens on a Get Started page. If you are new to Perusall, expand Tips for course setup in step to learn how assignments and grading work before going further.
Choosing assignment grading option in Perusall
The Scoring and analytics setting (in step 5 (Basic Settings) of the Get Started walkthrough or Settings > General) determines whether and how Perusall grades assignments.
Controlling grade reporting in Moodle
If you choose Automatic or Manual grading you will see an additional Grade Sync to LMS option that determines whether and how Perusall assignment grades appear in Moodle.
Discussion groups
Perusall recommends limiting discussion group size to 20 students for a good collaboration annotation experience.
- By default, it creates discussion groups automatically, based on the Enrollment estimate and Target group size you enter in step 5 (Basic Settings) of the Get Started walkthrough (also in Settings > General.
- If you don't want groups, make your Target group size larger than the number of students in the course.
- If you want to manually assign students to groups, you can do this at the Library item level. See Perusall's How do groups work? guide for more information.
Add a Perusall assignment link to Moodle (optional)
You only need to add one Perusall activity to your Moodle course to give students access to Perusall assignments and sync grades back to Moodle (either as individual grade items or a single summary grade, depending on your settings). However, you can also create Perusall activities that link directly to specific assignments (called "deep linking") on your Moodle page to set due dates in Moodle and help students track work.
Videos & More on Perusall
- Introduction to Perusall (Video)
- Integrating a Perusall assignment into Moodle (Video)
- Perusall guides for instructors
- How to copy and reuse courses on Perusall
- Perusall guides for students
- Perusall accessibility documentation
- Perusall webinars (demonstrations from Perusall trainers)
- Perusall Exchange Library (recordings, podcasts, papers, and other resources related to reading and teaching with Perusall)
Questions?
If you have any additional questions or problems, don't hesitate to reach out to the Help Desk!
Phone: 610-526-7440 | Library and Help Desk hours
Email: help@brynmawr.edu | Service catalog
Location: Canaday Library 1st floor
