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Setting Up Perusall in your Course

Perusall is one of many Digital Social Reading tools available to you as an instructor, and in many cases it can be used for free! If you’re utilizing your own materials, or if you’re using Perusall’s Open Educational Resources, you can use this resource for no cost with your students. 

In this guide, we’ll review the brief setup process for adding Perusall into your Brightspace course either on the content page or in the navbar. If you’d like to create assignments that link back to your Brightspace gradebook, please review Perusall’s guide on that process

 

Updated Spring 2025

Step 1: Adding Perusall to the Content Area

  1. Open your course and navigate to the Content page
  2. Select the module in which you’d like to add Perusall from the left sidebar
  3. If you are using the classic Content view, select the Existing Activities dropdown, then choose Perusall Assignment Link
    Select Existing Activities then Perusall Assignment Link
      

    • If you are using Lessons View, first select Add Existing then Perusall Assignment Link
       

       
  4. This will open a window with a few different options to choose from.
    • The first option Link to home page creates a link to Perusall’s home page.

       
    • The second option Link to this assignment allows you to select an assignment that was previously created in Perusall and add it directly to your course. You may also create a new assignment using the Create new assignment button.

       
    • The last option Link to this content allows you to select an item from your library. As noted, please keep in mind that no grades will sync back to the LMS when using this connection.

       
  5. Once you have selected one of these options, you should now see the link added to your course.

Step 2: Adding a Perusall Link to your Course Navbar

  1. Open your course and navigate to Course Admin > Navigation & Themes
  2. Select the navbar currently listed as “Active.” If the link for this navbar is not blue, please refer to our guide on editing your navbar
  3. Under Links, select the Add Links button

     
  4. Select Create Custom Link at the top of the window
  5. In the Name box, enter Perusall
  6. Under URL, select the Insert Quicklink button

     
  7. Select External Learning Tools from the list
  8. Scroll to the bottom of the list on the following page and choose Create New LTI Link.
     
  9. Enter the following information:
    1. Title: Perusall
    2. LTI URL: https://app.perusall.com/lti/launch 
       
  10. For the Tool dropdown, you should select Legacy LTI Tool.
  11. Select the Create and Insert button
  12. Click Create. You’ll receive a notification on your screen that your link has been created successfully
  13. Select Add to add the link you’ve created to your navbar
  14. Move your Perusall link where you’d like it to be among your other navbar items, then select Save and Close