A new way to annotate is coming

Paced Social Annotation is a mode in Hypothesis that lets instructors hide student annotations until a checkpoint they choose, rather than displaying them as soon as they’re posted. Students complete their own close reading and annotation first, working through the text without seeing what classmates have written. Once the instructor opens the checkpoint, for example, after a reading deadline or at the start of the next class session, all annotations become visible and students return to compare interpretations and respond to each other. It’s designed for instructors who want the collaborative benefits of social annotation without students anchoring their thinking to the first few comments that appear.

More info: Early Release Info – Paced Social Annotation

Social Annotation, the original Hypothesis mode, shows student annotations to the class as soon as they’re posted, so students reading later in the week can already see what their classmates noticed. Paced Social Annotation changes that sequencing: annotations stay hidden from other students until the instructor manually opens them at a checkpoint. For example, an instructor might assign a reading due Monday night, keep all annotations hidden through the deadline, then open them Tuesday morning before class discussion. Social Annotation works well for ongoing, seminar-style dialogue, while Paced is built for assignments where independent thinking before comparison matters more.

Self-paced learning refers to giving students flexibility over when they complete their coursework, for example, allowing a student to finish a reading anytime within a two-week window instead of by a fixed date. Paced Social Annotation is unrelated to that kind of scheduling flexibility. It controls when annotations become visible to classmates, not when students are allowed to do the work itself. An instructor can run Paced Social Annotation on a strict, fixed-deadline assignment (due Friday at 11:59pm, annotations open Saturday morning) just as easily as on a more flexible one. The “paced” in the name refers to the pacing of the discussion reveal, not the pacing of the coursework deadline.

No, Paced Social Annotation is not an AI detection tool, and it doesn’t scan, flag, or monitor student writing for AI-generated content. Instead, it addresses the same underlying problem, students skipping the reading and leaning on classmates’ annotations or an AI summary, through assignment design rather than surveillance. By hiding annotations until a checkpoint, it removes the shortcut of scrolling to a classmate’s comment instead of doing the reading. For example, a student can no longer open the assignment, see three peers have already annotated the difficult passage, and simply agree with their take instead of forming an original one. This approach sidesteps the arms race of AI detection software entirely by changing what’s possible within the assignment itself.

Paced Social Annotation works especially well for reading-intensive assignments where independent comprehension matters before group discussion, such as a primary source in a history seminar or a dense theoretical text in a graduate course. It’s also a strong fit for first-year and writing-intensive courses, where instructors are actively trying to build students’ confidence in forming their own interpretations. Large enrollment courses benefit as well, since hiding annotations until a checkpoint prevents an overwhelming, constantly-updating stream of hundreds of comments. And in any AI-era classroom where instructors want to encourage authentic engagement with the source material, Paced offers a structural way to do that without relying on detection tools.

Yes, instructors set their own checkpoint for each assignment, and that checkpoint is entirely under their control. For example, an instructor could set annotations to remain hidden until the reading’s due date passes, or until a specific class session begins, depending on how they want to structure the discussion. This gives instructors the flexibility to pace annotation visibility around their own syllabus rather than following a fixed system default. Once the checkpoint is reached, all student annotations become visible to the whole class at the same time.

Yes, Paced Social Annotation is available through the standard Hypothesis LMS integration, so it works anywhere Hypothesis already works, including Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, and D2L Brightspace. Instructors set up a Paced assignment the same way they’d set up any other Hypothesis assignment within their LMS, with the added option to configure the checkpoint. There’s no separate plugin or additional integration required. Students access it through the same reading and annotation interface they already use for Social Annotation assignments.

Yes, and large enrollment courses are actually one of the strongest use cases for Paced Social Annotation. In a Social Annotation assignment with 200 students, annotations can pile up so quickly that any individual student’s contribution gets buried, and the sheer volume can be overwhelming to read through. Paced Social Annotation’s instructor-set checkpoints break that volume into a single, structured moment where all annotations open at once, making the resulting discussion much easier to navigate. Instructors in large lecture courses have used this to create a clear “reveal” moment that anchors a follow-up discussion, rather than an unstructured, ever-growing thread.

Yes. Paced Social Annotation is well suited to scaffolded instruction because it lets instructors control exactly how much students see, and when. On a first pass, students annotate independently, optionally supported by visible instructor annotations, without seeing peer notes yet. Instructors can choose to stop there for a purely independent exercise, or reveal student annotations to the whole class at any point so students can compare their reading with classmates and reply to each other. Whether you’re introducing social annotation for the first time or working through a difficult academic topic, these incremental steps let you build scaffolding directly into the assignment.

Yes. Some students only annotate once, often at the last minute, even when instructors want them returning to a text multiple times. By setting separate time periods for annotating and replying, Paced Social Annotation naturally brings students back to the text after their peers have already added annotations, giving them more to respond to and building the habit of rereading. This is especially useful for difficult sections a class may have skimmed the first time, or for asking students to return to a text with a new purpose or lens on a second pass.

Yes. Revealing annotations to the class is optional, instructors aren’t required to open a checkpoint at all. This makes it possible to set up a private, 1:1 conversation between an instructor and a single student directly within the reading, using the same setup instructors already use for any other Paced Social Annotation assignment.