Annotation Tools

eComma focuses on very short texts (less than 200 words), and is especially associated with language learning. Instructors must paste text into eComma for subsequent student annotation. Pepperdine has not set up eComma to run within Courses, so you'll need to request that COERLL set up a private installation for your class; be sure to plan in sufficient turnaround time if you opt to use eComma.

Hypothesis uses a browser plugin to layer users' highlights and comments over an existing webpage. (Contrast Perusall, which draws texts into its own framework.) Hypothesis works on any webpage that has a permanent URL and displays its content directly, including full-text articles behind paywalls or within databases provided by the Pepperdine Libraries. For Hypothesis to work on PDFs, users must configure the plugin and download the PDFs to their own computers; Hypothesis cannot annotate embedded PDFs.

To gain the benefits of Hypothesis with physical textbooks, give students an advance organizer (saved as a PDF) with a relatively granular outline of the reading. Students won't be able to highlight actual passages in the reading this way, but they can annotate the organizer to participate in a structured pre-class discussion of the reading.

Hypothesis is free to faculty and students. Institutions must pay a fee to integrate Hypothesis into their learning management systems. Pepperdine has not taken this step, which means only that your students will need to register for a separate Hypothesis account.

Insert Learning uses a browser plugin to layer users' highlights and comments over an existing webpage. Insert Learning works on any webpage that has a permanent URL and displays its content directly, including full-text articles behind paywalls or within databases provided by the Pepperdine Libraries. Insert Learning does not work on PDFs.

Instructors can highlight text, add comments, and insert questions. Students can also highlight and add comments and participate in discussions embedded right in the webpage. Insert Learning's comments look deceptively simple; they can actually contain robust HTML content, which means you can embed other tools like Flipgrid topics, Google Slides, or YouTube videos within Insert Learning comments.

The free version of InsertLearning limits you to five lessons (annotated webpages) at a time; for unlimited lessons, choose the annual subscription for $40 annually or $8 per month.

Perusall enables collaborative annotations by displaying texts within a dedicated web application. (Contrast Hypothesis, which adds a layer to webpages and other texts in their own locations.) To ensure that webpages you assign do not change, Perusall actually takes a snapshot instead of working with live webpages. Perusall maintains a catalog of textbooks from major publishers, available for purchase and use within Perusall. You can also use Persuall with materials you upload, but before you upload any copyrighted materials to Perusall for this purpose, carefully assess your compliance with applicable copyright laws as well as the terms of service under which you acquired the materials. Additionally, articles you scan from printed sources are almost certain to contain page images rather than selectable text, and therefore won't work with Perusall.

To gain the benefits of Perusall with physical textbooks or materials you can't legally reproduce (by uploading to Perusall), give students an advance organizer (saved as a PDF) with a relatively granular outline of the reading, and assign the organizer to students within Perusall. Students won't be able to highlight actual passages in the reading this way, but they can annotate the organizer to participate in a structured pre-class discussion of the reading.

Persuall itself is free, but students must purchase the special Perusall edition of any textbook you assign through Perusall. Perusall offers Sakai integration, but Pepperdine has not implemented this functionality.

Panopto is a video hosting platform with recording and editing capabilities, introduced to Pepperdine in the summer of 2020. Among other features related to video creation and student engagement, Panopto lets viewers take notes on hosted videos right in the Panopto interface. Users can keep their notes private, make them public (to everyone who has access to the source video itself), or post them in shared "channels." Notes are timestamped, and Panopto keeps them in order by timestamp; however, notes are not automatically tagged with any user identification. Shared channels are not stored in a list; to enter a shared channel, users — even the user who created the channel — must type in the channel's name precisely. Even a single character difference will create a new channel rather than entering an existing channel.

Panopto also has a separate feature called "discussions." In the discussions list — which will automatically include the chat stream from a recorded Zoom session — comments are identified by user and timestamped. Viewers can reply to other users' comments, creating an asynchronous threaded discussion. However, the comments in a discussion list cannot be sorted by timestamp, so navigating the list could become confusing.

These note-taking and discussion features are only available for videos within the Panopto library. Thus you will only be able to use them effectively for materials you have created with Panopto or Zoom, or have uploaded to Panopto in compliance with applicable copyright laws.

VideoAnt, produced and hosted by the University of Minnesota, allows viewers to post text comments anywhere along a YouTube video's timeline, and to reply to each others' comments. Annotated videos, called Ants, can be made public or restricted to certain groups (such as classes). Although VideoAnt generates embed codes for Ants, Ants embedded in Courses appear only to display the video and existing comments, not to accept new comments.

VideoAnt is free, but limited to YouTube videos and text comments.

VoiceThread allows users to annotate an uploaded video or slideshow with text, audio, video, or graphics. As such, it could be used as a video annotation tool. However, it's really more of an asynchronous discussion tool.