Teaching with Technology

Information Technology

Hypothesis

Hypothesis allows students to collaboratively annotate a public web page, PDF, JSTOR article, or YouTube video. Annotations made in Hypothesis for Moodle are visible only to members of that specific Moodle course page. 

If you would like to use a PDF that is not publicly available on the web or via JSTOR, you will need to store the PDF in Google Drive. (Although you and your students will access Hypothesis through Moodle, PDFs stored in Moodle will not work with Hypothesis.)

Note: PDFs must have selectable text (OCR) to work with Hypothesis. You can use SensusAccess, Reed's accessible document converter, to create a tagged PDF for use in Hypothesis. Contact us at its@reed.edu for help with updating PDFs for Hypothesis.

Creating a Hypothesis activity

  • To create a Hypothesis activity in Moodle, turn on editing and click “Add an activity or resource.” From the Activity Chooser, select “External tool.” 

Moodle activity chooser interface with an arrow indication the External tool option

  • In the set up page, you will see a drop down menu for selecting a Preconfigured tool. Choose Hypothesis from the list. From the set up page, you can also modify other settings, like grading and visibility.

Moodle menu for a preconfigured tool showing the Hypothesis option selected

  • After you select “Save and Display,” click “Open in new window” to launch Hypothesis.
Hypothesis supports a variety of content types. Choose the type that is right for your assignment.
  • URL: If you are using a publicly available PDF or web page, choose URL, and then enter the URL for the page or resource. 
  • JSTOR: Hypothesis integrates with Reed's JSTOR resources.
    • Find the article you would like to use in JSTOR and copy the stable URL of the article, which you will find in under the title of the article. Do not copy the URL from your address bar.
    • In your Hypothesis assignment in Moodle, choose JSTOR, and then enter the stable URL you copied.
  • YouTube: Hypothesis supports annotation of YouTube videos via the transcript. Both the transcript and the annotations are synced with the video. Note that YouTube transcripts may be auto generated and contain errors. 
    • Locate the video you would like to use on YouTube and select the sharing option. Copy the link.
    • In your Hypothesis assignment in Moodle, choose YouTube, and then enter the link you copied.
  • Google Drive: If you are using a PDF that is not publicly available, you can add it to Hypothesis via Google Drive.
    • Store the file in Google Drive. You may want to rename it to make it easy for you to find later.
    • In your Hypothesis assignment in Moodle, choose Google Drive.
    • If you access more than one Google account on your device, you will be prompted to choose the correct account.
    • The first time you complete this process, you will be asked to give Hypothesis access to view and modify files in your Google Drive. This access is necessary for Hypothesis to function.
    • Use the Google Driver file picker to search for and select the file you would like to annotate.

Note that Hypothesis assignments cannot be copied between Moodle course pages. If you are re-using content from a past Moodle page, you will need to set up any Hypothesis assignments again.

However, it is possible to export your annotations and import them to a new Hypothesis assignment. This is especially useful for faculty who annotate their Hypothesis assignments with notes or questions for students to respond to and want to re-use their annotations from a past course page.

Viewing and creating annotations

Once you have entered a URL or selected your file, it will load in the Hypothesis annotation window. Below is an example with grading enabled, allowing you to filter annotations by student using the menu at the top of the page.

Hypothesis interface with "Test student" selected from the grading menu. A comment by Test student is visible in the annotation pane.

The first time users access a Hypothesis assignment, they will see instructions for making annotations. Hypothesis has a help page for students that covers making annotations and advanced functions.

Hypothesis also maintains a collection of example assignments and other resources for faculty.

If you have any questions about using Hypothesis in your Moodle course page, contact Instructional Technology Services at moodle@reed.edu.