Institute for Innovation in Education

An incubator of ideas, projects, and collaborations

Hypothes.is

Hypothes.is
Review of Hypothes.is: By Thomas Stockwell, 2016 Basic information: What does the method or tool "do" ­ in other words, what skills, practices, and/or means of collaboration are supported by this method or tool?
  • Hypothes.is is an online annotation tool.  Previously, documents would have to be printed to be highlighted and annotated.  However, with Hypothes.is, you are able to annotate virtually any website.  The web application is built on the Annotator project, and works by adding an Annotator layer on top of the current website.  Annotations can be publicly viewable, only viewable to yourself, or viewable as a group.  A group link can be shared and users in the group can share annotations of a given website, PDF or journal article. Groups can easily reply to other contributor’s comments.
Usage: How is the method or tool being (or might it be) used in your current project management and design, your teaching, and/or your graduate coursework? What type of example activity might be developed for utilization by someone unfamiliar with the tool?
  • The usefulness for this tool can be endless.  With this tool you can compare notes on internet media with people from all over the world.  The best way to introduce someone to this tool is to simply share an annotation link from the homepage. By default, everyone is able to view the publicly available annotations without a login.  To view group annotations or reply to annotations or create your own annotations, a free account is required to be created.  Specific uses in education include group annotations and keeping track of personal annotations for research papers.
Design: What are the affordances and constraints of this particular method or tool in relation to current/future collaboration, team or group work, and project management?
  • Despite this tool being very good at what it does, there are of course some limitations. Hypothes.is works well with standard webpages (html, asp, etc.), however, it has hit and miss utility with non-standard web documents such as PDFs, dynamic content, images of research materials, and websites with changing URLs for content.  The latter  two examples would be especially troubling for documents stored in proprietary academic research journals stored with repositories such as ProQuest.
Relation: How is this method or tool similar/dissimilar to other methods or tools you have previously used? How is it similar/dissimilar to those methods or tools your peers in this course have already reviewed?
  • I am not familiar with any other tool that accomplishes what Hypothes.is does. General annotations are available from some reference sites like ProQuest.  However, they do not provide in-page exact line annotations that Hypothes.is allows.
Media: Incorporate multiple forms of digital media to illustrate the functionality/purpose of this method or tool. Reflection: How does this method or tool relate to course themes and/or professional practices? Hypothes.is allows for collaboration through the use of group/public annotations. Both higher education professionals and students could benefit from using this resource. The ability of this open resource tool to collaborate on ‘works-in-progress’ papers, journal articles, research papers, presentation materials is endless. Highly recommend anyone who needs to review journal articles, peer reviewed works, or collaborate on research check this tool out!