Perusall
Description:
Persuall is an online discussion forum developed by Eric Mazur (Harvard physics educator) and colleagues to improve the social quality of student preparation before class. The program accommodates cost-free any text in pdf format such as open-source textbooks or instructor prepared material and commercial textbooks at prices negotiated with publishers.
Benefits:
The main benefit of Perusall over traditional discussion boards is automatic scoring based on quality of annotation and distribution of comments through the allotted time and assigned pages.
In addition, Perusall links comments automatically to text passages, divides large classes into manageable-sized discussion groups, emails students when answers to their questions appear, and identifies unanswered questions for instructor use in class. Their research on reading annotation suggests that student learning is increased if comments are elaborative and metacognitive.