Perusall Pilot
As part of the University Strategic Plan to enrich Villanova’s portfolio of instructional technologies, particularly technologies that have been designed to enhance student engagement and support formative feedback/assessment, the Perusall Pilot will continue through AY 2024-2025.
Perusall is a FERPA-compliant social annotation tool that allows students and faculty to interact with reading materials in a style akin to social media posting. Instead of reading a document and engaging with it via a separate asynchronous discussion board post, Perusall brings the discussion to the text. The tool allows faculty to upload their own content and/or adopt a course textbook through the platform. After making assigned materials available in the platform, students and faculty can comment, highlight, share notes, and create threaded discussions directly within the shared text. It offers:
- auto-grading
- access to a number of publisher texts (with student-paid fees) found in a searchable database
- the ability for students to “upvote” peer annotations
Perusall's use at Villanova is a pilot program, therefore requires faculty to request an account and have it added to their course in Blackboard. If you’re planning to use Perusall, then please complete the web-form found here. Please indicate in which course or courses you’re planning to use Perusall. Upon receiving your request, UNIT will add your course(s) to the appropriate “node” in Blackboard to allow you to access the tool.
Resources:
What should you know before uploading resources to Perusall (Falvey Library)
Getting started with Perusall (faculty)
Getting started with Perusall (students)
Perusall Course Creation LMS Prompt Response
List of faculty who have piloted Perusall
FAQs of faculty who have piloted Perusall
Perusall Training Video, (Access Passcode: @vJEDH0j).
Perusall Academy Training Videos
Teaching with Perusall: Suggestions (PDF)
Using Perusall in Theology, Rev. Christy Lang Hearlson, Ph.D., Theology and Religious Studies
Using Perusall in Ethics, Kristyn Sessions, Ph.D., Ethics
Using Perusall in ACSP, Rena Potok, Ph.D., ACSP
Using Perusall: What Has Worked for Me with Dr. Eliza Gettel, Assistant Professor of History, September 2022 (video) - with permission (15:55)
Dr. Gettel demonstrates how she has used Perusall in her instruction, outlines her equitable grading process, and focuses on creating a learning community.
Link to transcript.
D'Agostino, S. With online social annotation students read together. Inside Higher Education, October 12, 2022
Morales, E. et al. (2022). Using social annotation to construct knowledge with others: A case study across undergraduate courses. F100 Research.