Choosing Hypothesis Over Perusall
Focused on Discussion, Not Compliance
While both Hypothesis and Perusall can be used for reading compliance, Perusall focuses heavily on grading and accountability, which can cultivate a sense of surveillance — a means to an end for monitoring who has done the reading and who has not. Whereas the Hypothesis tool is first and foremost designed to deeply engage students with content and with each other. In other words, our social annotation offering is meant to build community on the page, both in the classrooms and across the web.
Collaboration Around Teaching and Learning
Hypothesis employs experienced educators as Customer Success Managers who support instructors and administrators at our partner schools, providing teacher training and one-to-one instructional design consultations. Hypothesis also offers self-serve educator resources for teaching with social annotation across the disciplines, and we regularly host public conversations with practitioners in our education community.
Beyond the Classroom
Unlike Perusall, Hypothesis is used across a variety of professions, from journalism to law to scientific research — and by everyday people on the web. So students introduced to Hypothesis through the classroom may well find continued use for the tool, and the skills it nurtures can go beyond a particular course or even their formal schooling.
Deep LMS Integration
Hypothesis is integrated into familiar workflows within your school’s LMS. Students aren’t learning a whole new platform, as with Perusall, but simply taking notes on and having conversations about readings in your course. Not only is this more convenient for end users, it is also more secure than Perusall’s offering when it comes to important concerns, from copyright to student privacy to data security.
Rigorous Accessibility, Security and Privacy
Hypothesis has tighter controls and more stringent standards than Perusall. When used in the LMS, the Hypothesis tool meets the rigorous level of AA compliance with WCAG 2.1. Students can use Hypothesis with their everyday screen reader. Hypothesis gathers and stores very little student data, and it works through the Learning Tools Interoperability standard (LTI) so that administrators can have transparency around and control over what limited data passes from their systems to ours.