Transforming Learning Through Perusall: A Two-Year Pilot Worth Watching
Introduction
With information overload and digital distractions, engaging students meaningfully with course material remains a challenge for university faculty. As we embark on a two-year pilot of Perusall, a social annotation platform designed to enhance reading comprehension and student collaboration, early feedback from a prior pilot and pedagogical research suggests this tool is potentially transformative for students.
Perusall Licensing Features & Benefits
Beyond Passive Reading: Active, Social Learning
Traditional reading assignments often leave instructors guessing: Did they read the material? Did they understand it? Perusall tries to address this gap by making reading interactive, social, and accountable. As students annotate texts collaboratively, they pose questions, respond to peers, and highlight key ideas. This creates a virtual seminar room embedded in the reading itself—bringing solitary study and shared intellectual exploration together.
For faculty, this could mean fewer blank stares and more informed conversations. For students, it means learning from each other in real-time, building a richer understanding of the material, and doing so in a format that meets them where they already live: online.
Equity, Inclusion, and Student Confidence
Perusall’s design inherently supports inclusive pedagogy. Students who are less comfortable speaking up in traditional class settings often find their voices online, where they can engage on their own terms. By leveling the playing field, Perusall promotes equity in participation, helping instructors hear from students who might otherwise remain silent.
Students can receive automatic formative feedback on their annotations, encouraging deeper thinking and metacognitive reflection. Rather than chasing grades, students are rewarded for curiosity, relevance, and effort—an approach aligned with the latest in cognitive science.
Analytics That Actually Help
Faculty who use UIC’s licensed version of Perusall receive more than just information about which students completed the reading. They also gain insights into student engagement, misunderstandings, and areas of confusion—all before class starts. This enables instructors to customize class time based on students’ needs, fostering a flipped classroom model where in-depth discussions and clarifications replace passive lecturing.
At a time when learning analytics are becoming central to instructional decision-making, Perusall stands out for integrating actionable insights without burdening faculty with extra grading or manual tracking.
Early Feedback: Encouraging Trends
Responses from our Perusall versus Hypothesis pilot two years ago showed that faculty members appreciated the ease of use and pedagogical benefits of Perusall. Many noted that it led to more robust classroom discussions, improved student preparation, and heightened engagement in asynchronous courses. Additionally, students reported feeling more connected to their peers and better prepared for class activities.
Perusall License: What you get
With a Perusall site license, faculty gain full access to the platform’s capabilities, along with enterprise-level support and integration options. Here’s a breakdown of what typically comes with a site license:
- Unlimited use of Perusall for all courses, departments, and instructors
- Ability to embed videos, websites, podcasts, and more into Perusall assignments
- Access to detailed metrics on insights to support learning outcomes assessment, retention, and teaching innovation
- Custom grading schemes and enhanced control over annotation scoring
- Dedicated onboarding for instructors and instructional designers
- Discounted or streamlined access to content from academic publishers that partner with Perusall (e.g., Pearson, Wiley, Oxford University Press)
- FERPA and GDPR compliance
- Instructors can use Perusall in any course, including courses not using textbooks (e.g., with custom readings, PDFs, websites, or open educational resources)
- Institutional control over data access, user accounts, and privacy settings
- Institution-wide usage reports
- Insights to support learning outcomes assessment, retention, and teaching innovation
- LMS integration
- Live training, workshops, webinars, and on-demand resources
- Option to use Open Educational Resources (OER) or institutional content
- Priority technical support for faculty and IT staff
- Students never pay—no individual or course-level fees
- Support for custom analytics dashboards
- Tools for academic research, professional development, and faculty experimentation
Next Steps for Faculty
- Put in a ticket with LTS if you would like to try the licensed version of Perusall.
- Explore the features now available.
- You can still use the free version of Perusall if you wish.
- We will reach out to all faculty piloting the licensed version at some point in the future to survey its value.
Moving Forward
Over the next two years, our university’s pilot will continue to evaluate Perusall’s impact across disciplines and teaching formats. We encourage instructors to explore the platform, attend workshops, and share experiences with peers. Innovation in education doesn’t always require new content—it often requires new methods.
Perusall invites faculty to rethink what a reading assignment can be: not a solitary checkbox, but a collaborative, dynamic, and deeply engaging learning experience. As we chart the next phase of this pilot, one thing is already clear: tools like Perusall are helping us reimagine reading not as a task, but as a conversation.