This article is for creating assignments in Blackboard Learn. For the corresponding Blackboard Ultra page see Creating Hypothesis-enabled Readings in Blackboard Ultra.
The process for creating Hypothesis-enabled readings in Blackboard Learn differs depending on whether an admin has installed the app or an instructor is using the app without a Blackboard admin installing it for them.
If an administrator has installed the app:
1. Select “Content” from the Blackboard sidebar, click “Build Content” and select “Hypothesis” from the menu
Note: If you do not see Hypothesis listed in the menu, you will need to first make the tool visible by selecting Customization > Tool Availability from the sidebar, locating Hypothesis in the list, and checking the box to make Hypothesis Available In Content Area.
2. Configure your Hypothesis assignment
Enter an appropriate name for your assignment (e.g. “Hypothesis Reading Week 1”) and adjust any other relevant configuration settings.
If you want to be able to grade this assignment later, under Enable Evaluations select Yes and enter a number for the maximum points possible.
You can read about grading Blackboard assignments here.
Click the Submit button to save the assignment. You will now see the new Hypothesis content item listed:
3. Click on the newly created content item to finish configuring your Hypothesis assignment
You will have the option to enter a publicly-viewable URL, select a file from your Blackboard course files (if enabled for your school), or choose a file from Google Drive.
Expand the sections below for instructions to use each option:
Click the button that says Enter the URL of web page or PDF. On the Enter URL dialog, enter a link to a public web page or PDF. Please note that the content at the link must be publicly viewable (i.e., not behind a login or paywall).
Click the Submit button.
Note: This option is only available if Blackboard Files Integration has been enabled for your school.
Before using this option, we strongly recommend following the instructions provided here to ensure that the PDFs have been configured with the proper permissions for use with Hypothesis.
Click the button that says Select PDF from Blackboard. You will then be able to browse your Blackboard course files to select the PDF you wish to use in the Hypothesis reading.
Highlight the file you wish to use and click the Select button.
Click the button that says Select PDF from Google Drive. You will be asked to select a Google account and/or authorize the Hypothesis LMS App to access Google Drive.
Search or browse to select a PDF to use in your reading. You may also click the Upload tab to upload a new PDF to use.
Click on the file you want to use and then click the Select button.
Note: This process will change the privacy of the selected Google Drive file to “Anyone with the link can view,” creating a publicly-viewable URL for the document. Please see our page on sharing settings in Google Drive for more information.
Notes:
PDFs must have optically recognizable text in order to be annotatable in the Hypothesis app. If you can select text in the PDF, no further action is needed. If you can’t select text in the PDF, you’ll need to follow our instructions for how to OCR-optimize a PDF.
After selecting the URL or PDF for your assignment, you may need to refresh the page, or close and re-open the assignment, before you can start annotating.
If an administrator has not installed the app:
Note: These steps require that you have already generated Hypothesis credentials as described in Installing the Hypothesis LMS app for Blackboard: Instructor Guide. To eliminate the requirement for entering the credentials for each new assignment, have an administrator install the app site-wide for you.