Canvas LTI 1.1 – Perusall

This article includes:

Individual Assignment Grade Sync Instructions

Step 1

To connect Perusall to Canvas, Contact support@perusall.com to obtain the institution’s Consumer Key & Shared Secret. Please email in from your official university email address using the subject line “Key and Secret Request” (For security verification purposes, please provide a link to an institutional web page that shows your name, email address, and title/affiliation.)

Step 2

To connect Perusall to Canvas, there are two ways to add the tool. First, check to see if Perusall is a preinstalled application:

In a Canvas course, click Settings > Apps.
Search “Perusall” in the Filter by name field, and click + App.
Enter your institution’s Consumer Key and Shared Secret (request these from Perusall Support as needed) and then click Add App.
Refresh the page and select the Navigation tab. Then scroll to the bottom, drag Perusall up to the list of viewable apps, and click Save.
After refreshing the page, Perusall will appear on the side navigation of your course. Launch the button and you will be taken to your new course! Students can also click this link to launch into your Perusall course.

If the above way is not an option, install Perusall manually

In a Canvas course, click: Settings > Apps > View App Configurations > + App
Choose By URL from the Configuration Type dropdown menu.
Enter “Perusall” in the Name field, enter your institution’s Consumer Key and Shared Secret , and in the Config URL field enter: https://perusall.com/downloads/lti-config.xml
Click Submit.
Refresh the page and select the Navigation tab. Then scroll to the bottom, drag Perusall up to the list of viewable apps, and click Save.
After refreshing the page, Perusall will appear on the side navigation of your course. Launch the button and you will be taken to your new course! Students can also click this link to launch into your Perusall course.

Here's a video showing this process:

Grade Sync

You can sync students' average assignment scores or students’ individual assignment scores back to Canvas.

Average grade sync

A student’s average score is each individual assignment score summed and then divided by the total number of assignments.

Syncing the average score rather than individual assignment scores saves time because an instructor will only need to create one Perusall link in a Canvas content area (or module) rather than an assignment link for each specific assignment.

Launch into your Perusall course> Click Settings > Scoring > scroll to Grade sync to LMS > select Automatically sync students' average scores back to the LMS> press save changes
Go back to Canvas. Create an assignment link by clicking: Assignments > +Assignment.
Title your Perusall Link. (For example, “Perusall Assignments”.)
The number in the Points field should match the high end of the Assignment score range of your Perusall course (which is by default 0-3 and found in Settings > Scoring.
Choose External Tool from the Submission Type dropdown menu, select Perusall in the tool list (or enter https://app.perusall.com/lti/launch as the External Tool URL) and then check Load this tool in a new tab.
Click Save & Publish.

Students will click this link to access their Perusall assignments and Perusall will pass their average scores back to Canvas as assignment scores are released. Hide the generic Perusall link from the course navigation sidebar (so students only use the assignment link just created) by clicking Settings > Navigation and then dragging Perusall to the bottom list and clicking Save.

Individual assignment grade sync

To sync students’ individual assignment scores, you will create assignment links in Canvas for every assignment in Perusall

In Perusall, set the Grade sync to LMS field (Settings > General) to Automatically sync students' individual assignment scores back to the LMS
In Perusall, click: Course home > Assignments > select an assignment > Copy full title for LMS. The assignment name will be copied to the clipboard
In Canvas, click Assignments > +Assignment. Paste the assignment’s title into the Assignment name field.
The number in the Points field should match the high end of the Assignment score range of your Perusall course (which is by default 0-3 and found in Settings > Advanced) > Choose External Tool from the Submission Type dropdown menu > Enter https://app.perusall.com/lti/launch as the External Tool URL> Check off load this tool in a new tab
Click Save & Publish.

Test the assignment specific link, and it should launch directly into its corresponding assignment in Perusall. Repeat this process for each Perusall assignment. We suggest removing the generic Perusall link from the Canvas course navigation sidebar. The reason is in order to successfully sync individual assignment scores, students must access each Perusall assignment by clicking its assignment-specific link in Canvas. If a student does not, then Perusall will not be able to send the student's scores back to Canvas.

Here's a video showing this process

Canvas Group Sync

If you would like to sync your Canvas groups to Perusall, you can! But you must only have one Canvas Group Set in Canvas. You cannot have multiple sets or the sync will not work.

In Perusall click: Settings > Grouping > Manually assign students to groups > Apply groups from Canvas > Save changes.

If you already have students enrolled in the Perusall course, they will temporarily be placed in Group 1. Students will be placed in Perusall groups that correspond with your Canvas groups upon their next launch into Perusall. Students not assigned to a group in Canvas will remain in Group 1 in Perusall. (If all of your students have been assigned to groups in Canvas, Group 1 will be empty once all students join the course in Perusall.)

To ensure this integration works as expected, in Canvas, Settings > Apps > gear icon in Perusall row > Edit) the Custom Fields text box should have the following on a line by itself: group_ids=$Canvas.group.contextIds
There is only one "group set" specified in Canvas.

NOTE

Every student in the course must access Perusall (from Canvas) in order for the new groups in Perusall to show up properly. This is the case since Perusall receives the new grouping information from Canvas when each student launches into Perusall from Canvas. 2) Perusall group numbers will not necessarily correspond with the Canvas group names, but students grouped together in Canvas will be grouped together in Perusall as well.

Student view

Canvas' Student View button will not work with Perusall, since Canvas doesn't send an email address to Perusall as part of that launch. To see what students will see once they launch into Perusall, utilize the Student View link on the left navigation bar within your Perusall course.

See our general LMS troubleshooting page for other common issues.

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