Hypothesis is a social annotation tool. It allows for sentence-level note taking or critique on top of classroom reading, news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation, and more. In Canvas, it is available as an external tool link as a module item or through an External Tool Assignment, but will not appear in the Course Navigation menu of a Canvas course.
Find answers to frequent questions about Hypothesis at Hypothesis FAQs.
For setting up graded annotation activities, see Using the Hypothesis LMS App With Assignments in Canvas.
For setting up graded group annotation activities, see Using Canvas Groups to Create Hypothesis Reading Groups.
For setting up ungraded annotation activities, see Using the Hypothesis LMS App With Modules in Canvas.
To provide students a larger annotation window, check the box next to Load in a new tab when creating a new Hypothesis assignment or module item in Canvas.
For setting up annotation activities with CAMP or VitalSource materials, see Utilizing the Course Materials + Hypothesis Integration.
For information on grading Hypothesis assignments, see Grading Student Annotations in Canvas.
For information on grading Hypothesis assignments via rubrics, see Using Rubrics in Canvas with Hypothesis.
Use the Hypothesis tool to create OCR copies of PDFs.
PDFs added to Canvas for use in Hypothesis must be published. Unpublished files will deliver an error when a student tries to open it to annotate.
We recommend caution linking to Google Drive files, as students living abroad have reported access issues.
Document annotations will not transfer during Canvas course copy. See Canvas Course Import or Copy and Hypothesis for more information.
Accessibility Tips
It is possible to use Hypothesis with your keyboard.
Additional Resources
- CTI Resource
- Hypothesis guide
