Categories
Canvas Spotlight Integrated Apps Readings/Content Timely Tutorials

Use Hypothesis for Collaborative Annotations on Documents in Canvas

Last updated on July 15, 2026

Create documents that you and your students can annotate together

Reading is often an essential pedagogical tool to engage, inform, and empower learning for students. The problem is often, how can you get your students to read more? The time has come to consider using social annotation to promote critical thinking, community, and create a window into the understanding of what your students are learning by engaging with their assigned readings.

This can be done collaboratively in Canvas through Hypothesis. This tool enables students to review a PDF or web page, leave annotations and comments on it, and view and respond to those annotations and comments left by their classmates. Join us for an introduction to the user interface in Hypothesis and how to leave annotations and view those from other users. For a step-by-step guide on creating Hypothesis documents, please see our Set Up Hypothesis Documents and Assignments in Canvas tutorial.

Best Practices

  • Make sure that any PDF you are using is accessible (including selectable, searchable text). Annotations made in Hypothesis need to highlight text and passages, so a simple scan or image of a book or pamphlet won’t work. 
  • When using external tools in Canvas, it’s generally a good idea to select the “Load in a new window” option. This will help the content display better on a variety of devices.
  • When creating a graded assignment with Hypothesis, give clear instructions to your students on what they’ll be graded on. Communicate your expectations in how many annotations they should make, what content to focus on, and whether or not they need to respond to annotations from other students.
  • Use only materials for which you have the rights (written permission from the author(s), Creative Commons, etc.) to ensure that you are not engaged in illegal activity and/or circumventing copyright or post copyrighted works in annotations.

Let’s walk through it together

Click to view in fullscreen

Directions

  1. Log in to your Canvas Account.
  2. Select the Course you’d like to work in.
  3. Locate any Hypothesis Document or Assignment you have added in the course.
  4. Click the Hypothesis Document or Assignment to open it.
  5. Click Load Hypothesis Assignment in a new window or Go Fullscreen to open the assignment in a new tab.

Navigate the Hypothesis Assignment

Hypothesis Document Tools

Note: These tool will not appear if the Hypothesis document is a Canvas Page.

  1. Click the Book icon in the top left-hand corner of the page to open a side panel that will display the pages in the document. This can allow you to find specific places in larger documents more quickly.
  2. Click the Magnifying Glass icon to the right of the book icon to search the document by keyword or phrase.
  3. Click the + and – icons in the center of the toolbar to zoom in and out of the document respectively.
  4. Click the Play icon to open the document fullscreen.
    • Note: You cannot annotate or highlight when viewing the document fullscreen.
  5. Click the Printer icon to print the document.
  6. Click the Folder icon with a down arrow to download the document to your device.
  7. Click the >> icon on the right side of the toolbar to open more viewing options.

Other Tools

  1. Click the eye icon from the options at the top left of the right-side panel to hide/show annotation highlights on the document.
    • Note: If there is a line through the eye, the highlights are currently hidden.
  2. Click Page Notes from the tabs above the annotations to switch from viewing the annotations to viewing page notes.
  3. Click the Magnifying Glass icon at the top right of the screen to search the annotations or page notes for specific words, tags, or users.
  4. Click the Two Arrows icon at the top right of the screen to change the order the annotations appear.
  5. Click the Upload icon to export or import annotations.
  6. Click the Profile (person) icon at the top right of the screen for more options.
    • Open Notebook: View annotations full screen. You can filter the annotations to view one student at a time by clicking the arrow next to Everybody, and selecting a student.
    • Open Dashboard: Displays students names and their number of annotations, number of replies, and date of last activity.

Create Annotations

  1. Select your annotation option.
    • Text Annotations: Select specific words, sentences, or passages to highlight and comment on.
      • Click and drag your cursor over a passage of Text to highlight it.
      • Click Annotate in the pop-up that appears.
        • Alternatively, click highlight to create a highlight only visible to you.
    • Rectangle Selection annotations: Select an area of the document to highlight and comment on. These are useful for highlighting larger portions of the document or for diagrams/charts.
      • Click the square icon from the options at the top left of the right-side panel.
      • Click and drag your cursor to create a rectangle over an area of the document.
    • Pin Selection Annotations: Select a point on the document to comment on. These are useful for pinpointing specific parts of an image or diagram.
      • Click the Pin icon from the options at the top left of the right-side panel.
      • Click a point on the document to drop your pin.
    • Page Notes: General comments on the document as a whole. They appear in a separate tab from annotations.
      • Click the Sticky Note icon from the options at the top left of the right-side panel.
      • Enter the Text of your Page Note in the text field in the right-hand side bar.
  2. Enter your annotation text in the text field that appears in the right-side panel. There will be an image of your annotation at the top, and a text box below.
    • This text field has basic word-editor functions, like bold, italics, lists, attaching images, and support for the mathematical function rendering software, LaTeX.
  3. Optionally, Click the @ icon at the top right of the comment toolbar to mention a specific person in the course.
    • @mentions will send an email to the user who was mentioned, alerting them they’ve been mentioned.
  4. Optionally, enter a tag in the Add new tags field below the text box.
    • These can be used to help indicate the type of annotation being made, such as question, comment, connection, etc.
  5. Click Post to [course name] to post your annotation.
  6. Click the arrow icon below a posted annotation to post a reply to it.

Have questions?

Need additional support on this or other teaching and learning topics? Please visit us for drop-in support (10am-3pm, M-F) or try one of our self-help tutorials. 

Ready to take your teaching to the next level? Opt into our Connections with CTLD newsletter!

Looking for more? View related topics: