Set Up Hypothesis Documents and Assignments in Canvas

Last updated on July 14, 2026

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 a Hypothesis document to a module and how to create an assignment that uses Hypothesis.

Directions

Create an Assignment Using Hypothesis (Graded)

Create Assignment in Canvas

1. Log in to your Canvas Account.
2. Select the Course you’d like to work in.
3. Click Modules on the left-hand course navigation menu.
4. Click the + icon to the right of the Module you want to add the Hypothes.is Assignment to.
5. Select Assignment from the drop-down menu at the top of the pop-up window.
6. Click Create Assignment.
7. Enter a Name for the assignment.
8. Click Add Item.
9. Click the name of the assignment you just created.
10. Click Edit in the top right corner.
11. Edit Assignment Instruction and Settings you want for the assignment.
    • View our tutorial, Create an Assignment in Canvas, for more guidance on the different Assignment settings.
12. Click the drop-down menu next to Submission Type.
13. Click External Tool.
14. Click the Find button to the right of the URL field in the Submission Type box.
15. Select Hypothesis from the list of options.

Hypothesis Assignment Details

1. Click on the Assignment Content 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 Page will allow you to choose a Canvas Page that has been created in the Canvas Course you are working in.
   • Canvas File will allow you to choose a PDF file that you have uploaded to your files in your Canvas course.
   • 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.
     • Note: 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.
     • 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.
2. Click Select to attach the chosen content to the assignment.
3. Click the box next to Enable Automatic Participation Grading if you would like Hypothes.is to automatically give students a grade based on number of annotations and replies.
   • Note: Automatic Grading will only grade based on the number of annotations or replies a student gave. It cannot account for the quality of annotations or engagement. It is recommended to still adjust students grade based on the content of the students’ work.
     • Choose which Grading Type you want to use.
       • Proportional: Students can receive partial credit if they have some, but not all, the required annotations.
       • All or nothing: Students will either receive 100% for meeting the required annotations, or 0% if they don’t meet them.
     • Choose which Activity Calculation you want to use.
       • Calculate cumulative: Students have a goal number for annotations and replies together, and they will be tallied together.
       • Calculate Separately: Students have a separate goal for annotations and replies, and they will be tallied separately.
     • Type the Goal for number of Annotation and Replies in the box to the right.
   • Note: Grades will not sync automatically with Canvas if you select this. To sync them with Canvas Gradebook once Students have annotated the document:
     • Click the Person Icon in the top right corner of the assignment within Hypothes.is
     • Click Open Dashboard from the drop-down menu.
     • Click Sync [number of students] grades in the top right corner.
       • You can also click the All students drop down menu to select specific students to sync the grades for.
4. 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. View our tutorial, Create Groups in Canvas, for more guidance.
5. Click Continue in the bottom right-hand corner of the pop-up window.
6. 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.
7. Click Save or Save and Publish in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.

Add a Hypothesis PDF to a Module (Ungraded)

1. Log in to your Canvas Account.
2. Select the Course you’d like to work in
3. Click Modules in the left-hand navigation menu.
4. Find the Module that you would like to add a Hypothesis PDF to. 
5. Click the + Icon to the right of the module’s name.
6. Click the Drop-Down Menu (by default this should say Assignments).
7. Click External Tool from the drop-down menu.
8. Click Hypothesis in the list of external tools that appears below the drop-down menu.
9. Click on the Assignment Content option you would like to use in the pop-up menu that appears.
   • View the Assignment Content options in the section above.
10. Click Accept and Continue after choosing the option you would like to use.                                           
11. 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.
12. Click Continue in the bottom right corner of the pop-up window.
13. Enter a Title for the document in the Page Name text field.
14. 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.
15. Click Add Item in the bottom right-hand corner.
    • The Hypothesis document will now appear at the bottom of the module and is unpublished.
16. Click the Publish Icon (circle with a diagonal line) to publish the document.

Have Questions?

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