Confused about which Hypothesis app you’re using? See our in-depth breakdown here.
Hypothesis has two apps which, while similar, have distinct differences. The primary differences between the apps are:
The LMS app:
- Does not require users to make accounts and does not store student emails or other personal information from students besides the minimum necessary to make annotations identifiable to an instructor. You can see the exact parameters we receive from the LMS here.
- Only allows students to annotate in private groups that are accessed from within the LMS course. There are no publicly viewable annotations and any Hypothesis users that are not enrolled in the course can not access the group.
- Automatically embeds Hypothesis in LMS assignments. LMS app users do not install any of the methods you would use to access the web app, like the Chrome extension.
- Is FERPA compliant.
The web app:
- Requires all users to make a Hypothesis account using an email address.
- Gives each user the option to post in private groups and to post in our Public group.
- Is accessed by using our Chrome extension, our Bookmarklet, or through our proxy server, Via.