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Introducing the software Hypothes.is, Arun Jacob facilitated the first CDHI Praxis Workshop of 2021-22: Social Annotation as Scholarly Practice. Hypothes.is is a social annotation software for collaboratively reading, commenting, and annotating online texts. Used through a Chrome extension or bookmarklet, Hypothes.is allows users to engage directly with all manner of digital or digitized texts—from websites to uploaded pdfs.

Social annotation tools such as Hypothesis and Voice Thread, when used well, boost student engagement, enhance critical thinking, expand reading comprehension, and increase student interaction. Of the several social annotation tools currently available, our institution uses Hypothesis. Hypothesis’ motto—“Making reading active, visible and social”—sums up why we think social annotation is so valuable for our students: it engages students and invites them to read and think together as a group by sharing real-time annotations of websites or PDFs (Hypothesis, 2021). The richly multimodal, interactive nature of Hypothesis offers instructors a platform through which they can employ the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to improve engagement and accessibility for all learners.

In this study, 44 first year undergraduate students were involved from a Singaporean university. they took part in a 13 week writing programme, using Hypothes.is “to respond to questions in their tutorial handouts for a period of two weeks.” Working in groups, students responded after “group discussions of 10 to 20 minutes on average” with annotations analysed and coded. In the literature review, research suggests that online social annotation tools are helpful for evidence-based tracking; teachers can gain an insight into how students process information; can reinforce learning; enhance student motivation (with an Internet connection) and in a collaborative context, provide other points of view and co-construction.

Hypothesis is a free open-source platform that not only provides students with a different way to demonstrate they’ve done the reading but more importantly allows students to work together to share information and build on the work of others.

Hypothes.is is an open source tool/plugin for social, collaborative asynchronous annotation. Collaborative annotation is an effective methodology that increases student participation and engagement, expands reading comprehension, and builds critical-thinking skills and community in class. Annotation can also increase faculty, student and cognitive presence in classes. Annotating together makes reading visible, active, and social, enabling students to engage with their texts, teachers, ideas, and each other in deeper, more meaningful ways.

Why is Hypothesis great for students? The annotations help students focus on the important points of the reading, which is especially useful with dense and detail-heavy texts. Because they can read one another’s annotations, students can benefit from seeing how other students have made sense of the reading. If you make each annotation worth very little of the grade, students experience less stress and anxiety when completing them.

The documents the class has annotated with Hypothes.is are diverse, ranging from book chapters and published articles, to websites and video transcripts, to even their class syllabus. “Annotating the syllabus allows students to add comments and questions to the course plan,” Gould said. “Annotating the syllabus live, in-class gives us an opportunity to openly discuss any confusing bits, and it opens conversation about particular aspects of the class. Students can add values statements and clarifying points to the inclusion statement, for instance, or ask questions about the collaborative grading system.”

Participants annotate articles using the web-annotation tool Hypothes.is and have access to comments from their peers. Groups are then assigned to summarize the annotations and findings, posting a synthesis for the course’s Hypothes.is group. In parallel, students contribute to common notes. The instructor generates a weekly video discussing the student notes. The goal of these activities is to foster an environment of open annotation and co-creation of knowledge to aid in studying for deeper learning. Compiled notes can be used to create an open educational resource (OER). The OER provides an entry point for future students and the public. Based on the evaluation of annotations, notes, and assessments, we conclude that these activities encourage student engagement and achievement of learning outcomes while raising awareness of the importance of open and collaborative practices.

The 21st Century offers new options for this kind of connecting. A free, open annotation app, Hypothes.is, offers a similar and expanded experience in the margins of digital texts. Readers can collaboratively annotate web-based content, respond to other readers, and add additional resources and links. This digital, social space offers the potential of conversations and insights into the text, which my students started referring to as a “ discussion before the discussion.”

There are other great digital annotation tools out there like Hypothesis (check out this excellent webinar) and Manifold.