Why Social Annotation Belongs in Your Fall Strategy (and Budget)
Summer is decision season in higher education. As faculty, instructional designers, and academic leaders evaluate tools and strategies for the next academic year, one question keeps surfacing:
How do we increase student engagement and improve outcomes—without adding to instructors’ workloads or overwhelming students with yet another platform?
One increasingly clear answer: social annotation.
The Challenge: Students Aren’t Engaging With Course Readings
Getting students to consistently read assigned texts is a long-standing challenge. When readings go untouched or are only skimmed, class discussions suffer, assessments reflect surface-level understanding, and participation often dwindles.
Discussion boards—once seen as a fix—have proven to be time-consuming and disconnected. AI-generated responses further dilute the quality of engagement. Students aren’t talking to each other; they’re checking boxes.
Faculty and instructional designers alike are seeking new ways to encourage deep, active engagement with course content—and to do it in a way that’s visible, collaborative, and aligned with learning goals.
The Solution: Make Reading Active—Together
Social annotation transforms passive reading into an active, collaborative experience. Tools like Hypothesis allow students to comment, ask questions, and respond to peers directly on course texts—whether they’re PDFs, articles, or textbook chapters.
Instead of waiting for a discussion board thread or relying on class participation alone, faculty can now see students thinking in the margins—in real time or asynchronously.
This approach supports:
- Closer, more intentional reading
- Peer-to-peer learning and community building
- Timely feedback and early intervention
For students, it turns reading from an isolated task into a shared academic experience. For instructors, it creates clear insight into who’s engaging—and how.
The Impact: Measurable Gains in Engagement and Outcomes
Schools using social annotation are already seeing real results.
At Moravian University, over 6,000 annotations were made by incoming freshmen during a summer reading program, leading to more prepared students and stronger discussions in the fall. Read the Moravian University case study here.
At UT Austin and the University of Minnesota, students using Hypothesis with their eTexts engaged with course materials up to 3x more than peers in sections that didn’t use Hypothesis. Read the full case study.
Faculty at institutions like the University of Alaska Fairbanks say social annotation helps them assess student understanding earlier and more effectively—without increasing grading workload. Read more instructor feedback.
Budget Season Bonus: The ROI Makes Sense
Academic leaders evaluating new tools want to know: Does it work, and is it worth it?
Social annotation delivers on both fronts:
- It improves learning outcomes and student satisfaction
- It scales easily across courses and departments
- It’s been proven to increase class retention by keeping students engaged
- It integrates with existing LMS platforms and requires no new logins or tech hurdles
“When comparing Hypothesis to other social annotation tools… the features were much more robust… your cost structure made a lot more sense… it was really kind of a no-brainer decision for us.”
—Merilee Madera, Interim Director of Distance Education, West Liberty University
To help quantify the return, we’ve built a tool that models the impact Hypothesis can have across your institution—from engagement to instructional efficiency.
Use the ROI Calculator to see potential outcomes for your campus.
Plan Smarter for Fall—and Beyond
As you set your teaching and learning strategy for the upcoming year, consider how much of your course success depends on students engaging with the material itself.
If students don’t read, they don’t participate. If they don’t participate, they don’t learn.
Social annotation offers a better way. It turns every reading into a chance for conversation, inquiry, and connection—making engagement part of the learning process, not a separate task.
Hypothesis includes powerful features to support that experience:
- @mentions to tag and invite students and instructors directly into a conversation
- Threaded replies for deeper discussion
- Tags to surface themes and help students organize their thinking
- Private and group annotations to match any course setup
- Seamless LMS integration with tools like Canvas, D2L, Blackboard, and Moodle
- Coming Soon: Image annotations! Launching at the end of May
And when it comes to implementation, our plans are flexible and can be tailored to your needs. Whether you’re starting small or thinking big, we’ll work with your team to make it easy, scalable, and sustainable.
Want to learn how Hypothesis can fit into your fall strategy?
Visit web.hypothes.is to explore our case studies, try the ROI Calculator, or contact us to talk about a customized approach for your institution.