Hypothesis (Instructor)

Video Overview

Hypothesis is a Canvas integration that for the instructor and students to annotate documents together. It can be used to annotate a PDF, web page or a Canvas page. Hypothesis can be setup in modules (as a non-graded activity) or assignments (as a graded activity). If you want to grade student annotations, be sure to setup as assignment so grades will pass back to the gradebook.

Introduction to Hypothesis

Annotating Canvas Pages

Reusing Annotations

Hypothesis Guides and Resources

Review the guides below. Click an item to view or use the expand all option to see all items in the list.

Setup as Non-Graded Activity in Modules

To setup Hypothesis as a non-graded activity, go to the Module page. If you don't already a module in the course, click +Module to create a new module. Make sure the module is published. In the module header, click the + icon and select External tool option. Select Hypothesis from the list of tools. From the Hypothesis screen, choose what you will be annotating. Review the following guide for step by step instructions.

Using the Hypothesis LMS App With Modules in Canvas

Setup as a Graded Activity in Assignments

To setup Hypothesis as a graded activity, go to the assignment page. In the assignment settings under submission types, select the External tool option. Click Find and select Hypothesis from the list of tools. From the Hypothesis screen, choose what you will be annotating. The Hypothesis website has several starter assignment directions you can copy and paste in the assignment description. The annotations can be graded in SpeedGrader. Review the following guides for step by step instructions for assignment setup.

Tips and Guides on Using Hypothesis

Review the following guide on how to use Hypothesis to create and respond to annotations.

Annotation Basics

It is important to understand the differences between a highlight (private) and an annotation (public to all enrollments).

What’s the difference between an annotation and a highlight?

You can add links and images to your annotations. See the following guide for instructions.

Adding Links and Images to Your Annotations

You can embed videos your annotations.

How to embed videos in annotations

You can setup group annotations using Canvas groups. See the following guide for instructions.

Using Canvas Groups to Create Hypothesis Reading Groups

Important Notes

Account Notes

With the Canvas integration, when user interact with Hypothesis activity, all user accounts are automatically generated using the default email address in each person's Canvas account (typically your Lake Land College email address).

Please note you can create an account on Hypothesis websiteLinks to an external site. for creating public annotations; however, this account will NOT be connected to the account that is automatically generated from the Canvas integration.

What Are the Differences Between the Hypothesis Web and LMS Apps?

File Notes

When you create Hypothesis activity, you can select web page URL or publicly available PDF. Please note the following:

Web page - Some websites may not work with Hypothesis so be sure to test the assignment before publishing the assignment. If you find that Hypothesis doesn't work with the website where the article located, you can save the article as a PDF to download and then upload to Canvas files.
- Hypothesis is not working on a particular page. What could be happening?
Canvas Files - You can also upload a PDF to Canvas Files and when you are creating Hypothesis activity, you can select the PDF from Canvas files. Please note for PDF files to be annotatable by Hypothesis, the PDF file must have optically recognizable textLinks to an external site.. If you can select text in the doc, then it does.
- OCRing a PDF
Canvas Pages - Starting Spring 2024, you can use published Canvas pages for social annotation. Please note content for annotation must be added directly to the page. Embedded content cannot be used with the social annotations options.

Course Notes

When you create an Hypothesis assignment or module activity in Canvas, a private Hypothesis group is automatically created for you and your students for the purpose of creating web annotations that can only be seen by members of the group.

When you do a course copy, there may be some extra steps you will need to do setup existing Hypothesis assignments. This will vary depending on how the Hypothesis assignment was setup in the previous course. See the following guides for details.

If you setup your own annotations to begin an assignment, you can export them and import via Hypothesis so you don't have to recreate them each semester.

Exporting and Importing Annotations