Perusall

Owned by Mark Gallimore
Last updated: Feb 04, 2021
5 min read

Contents:

Perusall allows the following media types to be made available to students for social interactions:  

  • PDF files
  • EPUB book files
  • Word documents
  • Excel documents
  • Source code files (in most popular languages)
  • Videos based at YouTube, Google Drive, Vimeo, or Dropbox
  • Podcasts distributed through RSS.

Perusall also has many relationships with textbook and other publishers, so that your students can purchase textbooks to be available through Perusall.  


Perusall has it's own management dashboard outside D2L.  You must create a Perusall account, and then can access that management dashboard by going to:

https://app.perusall.com/home

You can create your account independent of D2L.  If so, consider bookmarking this link in your browser.  Or, you can create an account and install the link in D2L in the process of setting up your course. 

Student Perusall Accounts

When your students click the link to a Perusall-based reading assignment for the first time, it will create their account.  They will be shown a terms-of-service screen, but after that they can use Perusall in your course.

Setting Up Your Course

Create a Link to the Perusall Dashboard, and Create a course identity within Perusall.

Create a special link to Persuall Called an "External Learning Tool," within one of your Content modules.  This will create a link to the Perusall Dashboard, that is then customized for you and your students. 

Select Add Existing Activities > External Learning Tools > Create New LTI Link.  (LTI stands for "Learning Tools Interoperability," and is just a common protocol with which many educational technologies communicate.)

Select Add Existing Activities > External Learning Tools > Create New LTI Link.  (LTI stands for "Learning Tools Interoperability," and is just a common protocol with which many educational technologies communicate.)

Enter Perusall Dashboard for the name, and paste in the following URL for the LTI URL: https://app.perusall.com/lti/launch

Then click Create and Insert.

Select Edit properties in place in the dropdown next to the newly-created link, and check Open as external resource.  This means Perusall will open in a second browser tab, which is always better for you and your students.

Reload the page by clicking either the module title on the left, or the Content label on the Navbar.

Now, the "Perusall Dashboard" name for the content item should again be a clickable link.

Click on the new Perusall link. Perusall will launch and a course will be created that is connected to your D2L course.

Perusall starts you at a dashboard where you can learn about working with assignments and their links in D2L, as well as configuring your course within Perusall.  

You can also use links along the left, or the top, to go directly to Perusall tools.

If you would prefer that students only access assignments directly from your D2L course space, and do not navigate through the dashboard, you can hide the dashboard link in D2L so only you can see it.  This is required if you intend to connect Perusall assignments directly to your D2L course gradebook.

Create an Assignment

To create an assignment in Perusall, you need to add some content that's the basis for student discussion.  This can be, for example, a PDF file or a video.  

PDF-based Assignment

Add a PDF to your Perusall class library.  Click Library toward the top of the Perusall Dashboard.  Then choose the Add content option to the right.  

In this example, we've uploaded two PDF files from a local hard drive.  They are uploading, and present a progress bar as they do.  Large PDF files may take time to upload. 

Next click Assignments on the upper bar.  Click Add Assignment to start the process.

Perusall will walk you through steps to create an assignment.  When first you click in the text bar for Content to assign, Perusall will list the options now in your course library.  Click the appropriate option.

Then choose whether you want to assign the entire file, or just several pages.

Once the assignment is created, Create an LTI link in D2L, just like the Perusall Dashboard link above. 

Use the same URL to create the perusall dashboard: https://app.perusall.com/lti/launch

However, copy the assignment title exactly as it appears in Perusall's dashboard, to paste in as the link title in D2L.  Perusall makes this easy with the Copy full title for LMS link, which automatically copies it to your computer's clipboard, so you can paste it directly into D2L.


And as with the Perusall Dashboard link, be sure to select Edit properties in place in the dropdown next to the newly-created link, and check Open as external resource. 

After you click either the module title, or the Content link in the Navbar, the page will refresh and the link will be ready for your students to use.


Scoring

You can read about Perusall's automated scoring engine here.  https://perusall.com/downloads/scoring-details.pdf

However, if you would like to dispense with Perusall's elaborate scoring tools, and simply grade Perusall activity on your own, here's how: 

In your Perusall course dashboard, go to Settings

On the first (General) page of settings, check the dropdown menu beside Release Scores to Students.  Be sure that never (hide the gradebook and disable Perusall's scoring) is chosen.  

Then click the green "Save Changes" button in the lower right.