Set Up Hypothesis Documents and Assignments in Canvas

Last updated on October 10, 2023

In your course, you may want students to review a document and annotate it to show their understanding and interpretation of the material. This can be done collaboratively in Canvas through the third-party tool, 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. In this tutorial we will cover how to add an Hypothesis document to a module and how to create an assignment that uses Hypothesis.

Directions

1. Go to MSU Denver’s Faculty and Staff Hub.
2. Click Canvas in the Teaching & Learning section.
3. Log in to your Canvas Account.
4. Select the Course you’d like to work in.

Add a Hypothesis PDF to a Module (Ungraded)

1. Click Modules in the left-hand navigation menu.
2. Find the Module that you would like to add a Hypothesis PDF to. 
3. Click the + Icon to the right of the module’s name.
4. Click the Drop-Down Menu (by default this should say Assignments).
5. Click External Tool from the drop-down menu.
6. Click Hypothesis in the list of external tools that appears below the drop-down menu.
7. Click on the Option you would like to use in the pop-up menu that appears.
   • URL Web Page or PDF will ask you for a URL (web address), which you can copy from the address bar of your web browser when you have the PDF or web page open and then paste it into this field.
   • Canvas PDF will allow you to choose a PDF file that you have uploaded to your files in Canvas.
   • OneDrive PDF and Google Drive PDF will both allow you to choose a PDF file that has been uploaded to one of those online storage systems. You will need to log-in with a Google or Microsoft account respectively to select the file. Please note that all MSU Denver faculty and students already have OneDrive accounts that they can access by using their single sign-on credentials.
   • YouTube Video will allow you to upload a YouTube video URL (web address) which you can copy from the search bar when you have the video open in your browser.
     • Note: This option will allow students to annotate the transcript of the video, not the video itself. If the video does not have a transcript students will not be able to make annotations. 
   • JSTOR Article will allow you to copy URL’s from JSTOR articles and use them for your assignment. The URL to a JSTOR article can be found beneath the article’s title on the JSTOR website which you can copy and paste into the field that appears when clicking on this option.
8. Click Accept and Continue after choosing the option you would like to use.                                           
9. Click the checkbox next to This is a group assignment if you would like students to only see annotations from members of their group.
   • Please note that you will need to create a group set before selecting this feature.
10. Click Continue in the bottom right corner of the pop-up window.
11. Enter a Title for the document in the Page Name text field.
12. Check the box next to Load in a new tab.
    • This step is not mandatory but can prevent many software and browser issues related to viewing the document.
13. Select an Indentation if you would like the name of the document to be indented in the Module. You do not need to select any indentation if you prefer not to.
14. Click Add Item in the bottom right-hand corner.
    • The Hypothesis document will now appear at the bottom of the module and is unpublished.
15. Click the Publish Icon (circle with a diagonal line) to publish the document.

Create an Assignment Using Hypothesis (Graded)

1. Click Assignments in the left-hand navigation menu.
2. Click + Assignment in the top right-hand corner of the page.
3. Enter a Name for the assignment.
4. Enter Instructions for the assignment in the Rich Content Editor.
   • For example, this can be an explanation of how many annotations you expect each student to make, the type of content you want them to respond to, or directions to respond to a certain number of other students’ annotations.
5. Enter a Point Value for the Assignment.
6. Choose which Assignment Group this assignment will be put in.
   • If you don’t use Assignment Groups, you can leave this as the default.
7. Choose what Format the grade will be displayed in, such as Points or Percentage.
8. Click the checkbox next to Do not count this assignment towards the final grade if you would like this assignment to not factor into the student’s final grade.
9. Click the Drop-Down Menu at the top of the Submission Type section.
10. Click External Tool in the drop-down menu.
11. Click Find beneath Enter or Find External Tool URL.
12. Click Hypothesis in the list of external tools.
13. Click on the PDF Option you would like to use in the pop-up menu that appears.
    • These options are explained in detail above.
14. Click the checkbox next to This is a group assignment if you would like students to only see annotations from members of their group. Please note that you will need to create a group set before selecting this feature.
15. Click Select in the bottom right-hand corner of the pop-up window.
16. Check the box next to Load in a new tab.
    • This step is not mandatory but can prevent many software and browser issues related to viewing the document.
17. Enter a Due Date, Available From Date, and Available To Date as normal.
18. Click Save and Publish in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.