Getting started for instructors

Create your account 

How you create your account depends on how you plan to set up your course:

1. Learning Management System (LMS) integrated courses 
   Access and manage your course directly through your institution’s LMS.
   • Refer to our setup documentation for installation.
   • Launch the Perusall tool in your LMS to automatically create your account and connect to your course.
2. Standalone courses
   Set up and manage your course directly on the Perusall website.
   • Create your Perusall account, select you are an instructor, and then build your course. 

Profile Settings: To edit your account details, click your profile icon in the top-right corner of the screen and select an option from the dropdown menu.

Get started

Follow the course setup wizard to define quick course details:

• Choose to create a brand new course or copy an existing course. 

  

• Choose the student payment option for your course:

  • Adopt a book: Choose a textbook from Perusall's catalog. Students will only pay for access to book(s).

  • Choose a course access fee: If your school does not have a license and you are not adopting a book from the catalog, set a one-time fee for students to access your course content. Learn more about Course Choice options.

  

   

• Enter your core course information such as your department, start/end dates, and estimated enrollment.

  

  Additional configurations (such as automatic grading, scoring templates, and student grouping) are pre-configured with default values and can be adjusted anytime under Settings in the left sidebar.

• Perusall automatically fills in default settings based on your course and institution. In this final set-up step, you can review and fine-tune your specific course features:

  

  • Starter assignments: Consider using one our pre-made Making the most of learning with Perusall assignments, or upload your syllabus to use as a review assignment to get students acquainted with the platform.
     
  • Grouping: Revise how you want students to be grouped. 
     
  • Scoring: Review your grading and engagement analytics preferences (such as grade release and grade sync settings).
    
    For more information, review the following guides:
    • How scoring works  (to view, you must be signed into your account!)
    • How do I use scoring templates?
    • Setting up and controlling course analytics
  • Get students enrolled: Share your course enrollment code or URL, or add students directly by entering their email address or uploading your roster. If your course is integrated into the LMS, students will simply launch the tool link placed in your LMS course. 
     
  • Accessibility: Explore our accessibility and inclusive learning options and how to navigate Perusall with a keyboard.

When you are ready, click Continue to Library to add content at the bottom of the page to start uploading materials. (You can always go back to edit these features by navigating to Settings in the left sidebar.)

Managing the Library

The Library in Perusall is a centralized space where instructors can upload and organize course materials for students to engage with whether inside an assignment or directly from the Library tab. 

To access and manage your course materials:

1. Navigate to Course home.
2. Select Library on your course home page.
3. Click + Add Content and choose the type of content you’d like to add, including a book from our catalog.

Related articles: 

• How do I manage my course content? What materials can I use? 
• How do I adopt a textbook using Perusall?
• What are folders?

Creating assignments

The Assignments tab in Perusall is where instructors create and organize assignments based off the content from the Library. 

1. Navigate to Course home.
2. Select Assignments on your course home page.
3. Click + Add assignment and select the specific assignment type you want to create from the dropdown menu.

Related articles: 

• Learn more about managing assignments.
• How do I create a differentiated assignment?
• How do Review-Based Assignments work?

Inviting students

LMS integrated courses

For courses built through LMS integrations (such as Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, D2L, etc), your students will automatically be enrolled via roster sync for LTI 1.3 courses.  Students will access your course by clicking on your Perusall assignment links. 

Learn more about our LMS integrations.

Standalone course

For courses built directly at app.perusall.com without using an LMS integration, you can invite your students to join your course by using one of the methods below (located under Settings > Access > Students)

• Share your course enrollment code
• Share your course join URL
• Add students directly by entering their email address
• Uploading your roster

Viewing discussions and creating comments

Open a document in the Library tab or an assignment in the Assignments tab.

You'll see highlights superimposed on the document that represent comments that you and students have entered.

• Yellow highlights indicate comments or questions by students. 
• Blue highlights indicate general instructor comments.
• Green highlights indicate instructor-placed prompts or quiz questions that require student responses. These required prompts or questions are called Checkpoints. 

To highlight, click and drag your mouse using our annotate text tool or annotate figure tool. (how do I highlight and create, edit or delete a comment?). Once highlighted, a new conversation bubble will appear in the right-side panel. Enter a comment or question, and press Enter to save it. 

• Annotate text tool:
  
   
• Annotate figure tool:
  
   

The toolbar above the content screen and right-side panel provide many social annotation tools users can use to enhance their experience. 

• How do I filter my view of comments or highlights?

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