Changelog

Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.

RSS

New ways to import content
There are now a number of new integrations that make it easy to get the content you want to use into Perusall:And Perusall will now automatically extract metadata (e.g., title, authors, publication date) from many kinds of content, including many PDFs, EPUBs, videos, and podcasts, to power the new citation generation tool for students. You can also edit metadata via
Library > Edit
.
Use generative AI to suggest discussion prompts
If you like to post your own discussion prompts for students to respond to, you can now use generative AI to get ideas for thought-provoking questions to pose to students. Simply highlight the text you want to ask a question about, and click
Suggest a discussion prompt
. Perusall will fill in a suggested question for students to respond to. You can choose to post the question as-is for students to see, edit it before posting, or discard it if unhelpful. (Nothing will be shown to students until you have an opportunity to review.)
Personalize the terminology used in the interface
If you use Perusall outside of a traditional "course" context -- for example, a workshop, journal club, of professional development session -- you can change the language used in the interface to match your use of the platform. For example, you can use "workshop" instead of "course" and "participant" instead of "student." You can set your preferred terminology under
Settings > Terminology
.
Import quizzes from QTI packages
If you have quizzes in your LMS or another quizzing tool, you can now import them into Perusall using the QTI 1.2 or 2.1 format. Navigate to
Library > Add content > Quiz > Import quiz
to start the process.
Perusall also now supports "text-only" questions that present a stimulus to students but do not require a response, so you can present instructions for a group of questions above those questions.
Social learning "training" for students
A new built-in assignment,
Making the most of learning with Perusall
, helps train students in how to engage productively in social learning and how to write high-quality comments. This guided assignment prompts students to both work independently and reflect on their classmates' responses, and is available in multiple versions (for STEM, humanities, and social science courses). You can add it to your course by navigating to
Library > Add content > Making the most of learning with Perusall
.
Dynamic feedback for students
If you use automatic scoring in your course, students now receive customized feedback in the assignment progress panel while they are working on the assignment. Students will receive suggestions about what to work on to improve their score and get more out of the content (for example, they might receive a suggestion to improve the quality of their comments, or to ensure they have read all of the assigned material). The feedback is based on your selected scoring rubric. It can be disabled by selecting
Settings > Scoring > General > Hide grade feedback from students
.
Analytics in the Library
You can now view analytics in the Library in addition to the the analytics previously available for each assignment. This allows you to still have access to Perusall's analytics even if you don't use assignments, and also see analytics aggregated up to the document level (rather than the assignment level) so you can see student engagement on content regardless of whether the student was working on an assignment or not.
Audit panel
A new
Audit
panel on the left navigation bar allows you to review and manage comments that have been flagged (either by students, as inappropriate, or automatically by the system, as exact duplicates). You can also see comments where students have pasted in text from outside of Perusall or comments that the system detects may not be valid English.
Turnitin integration
Perusall now integrates with your institution's subscription to Turnitin. Once your institution sets up the integration, you can enable it for your course via
Settings > Academic integrity
. Perusall will flag in the Gradebook any assignments that Turnitin flags have a high similarity score; click on a score and then click on the Turnitin tab to review the full report from Turnitin.
Quoting comments in your replies
When conversation threads get long, you sometimes want to reply to something in a comment far up in the thread. You can now do this by highlighting the part of the comment you want to quote and clicking
Quote this in my reply
:
Once you do this, Perusall will format the quote for you in your reply, and @-mention the person you are quoting; you can then add your comment below that:
Animated GIFs
Sometimes it's fun to add a little whimsy into your comments! Click the
Insert GIF
button in the toolbar to search for the perfect GIF to add to your comment:
Citation assistance
For many kinds of content, you can now generate a suggested reference or citation for a document in your preferred format (APA, MLA, or Chicago) through the new
Generate citation
button on the right panel:
If you have text selected, Perusall will suggest an in-text citation. You'll also get a reference you can use in a reference list or works cited list.
Add a bio to your profile
If you add a bio to your profile (click your name in the upper right corner of the screen, and then click
Edit profile
), it will show up when other people hover over your photo/initials within Perusall:
Dictate comments by voice
In many browsers, you can now click the microphone button in the toolbar to dictate your comment by voice. Simply click the microphone and start talking!

improved

Instructor

Student

Enter text in right-to-left languages

If you are writing text in a right-to-left language, you can now click a new button in the comment editor toolbar to switch text entry to that mode.

improved

Instructor

Customize folder appearance

You can now customize the appearance of folders in your course Library. Apply rich formatting to the folder description, and choose the color for the folder icon:

improved

Instructor

Student

Add lists and quotes to your comments

You can now add numbered lists, bulleted lists, and quotes to your comments using the new toolbar buttons in the comment editor:
In general, students enrolled in a course will continue to retain access to that course even after the end date. However, you may have an old course that you want to prevent students from accessing (for example, if it has quizzes or other sensitive materials that you want to reuse). To address this, you can now select
Settings > Advanced > Block student access to this course
to prevent students from accessing that course. Nothing is deleted; uncheck that option at any time to restore student access.
By default, the identities of students that post comments anonymously are hidden from everyone except the instructors of the course. You can now optionally provide that visibility to your teaching assistants as well by enabling this new option under
Settings > Access
:
If you use the LTI 1.3 integration with Perusall, you can now create "deep links" from your LMS into content in your Library
without
having to create an assignment. If you use Perusall without assignments or simply want to point students directly from your LMS into course content outside of an assignment, you can now do that to create a more integrated experience for students.
Sometimes, you'll be reading a document and a page won't be the way you want it -- it's a table that is on its side, for example. Now you can rotate pages left or right so that it's easy to read what is on each one!
When creating an assignment, you can now exempt specific students from the assignment by assigning the assignment to the entire class except for specific students you select:
Excluded students will not see the assignment in their assignment list and will not receive a score for the assignment.
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