Hypothesis for Colleague - Colleague Feedback?

[Zach Morgan]

Hi everyone!

I'm an instructional designer working at a university. Our small team has been using hypothesis (in the wild) to provide each other (and the faculty with whom we work) feedback on what we build in the Learning Management System (LMS). We use Canvas, and a big limitation we had before was the lack of a way to "mark up" pages, assignments, discussion boards, etc. Hypothesis gives us an easy way (via the creation of a private group) to have this sort of dialogue within the context of the courses we develop. 

It's been so beneficial, that I would like to create a resource to share the practice with other faculty and staff. Use cases could range from "I'd like a second set of eyes on this aspect of the course" --> Formal peer review of online teaching connected to faculty personnel actions. The latter is, of course, a little more complicated and potentially fraught :)

Does anyone have experience with (or suggest resources related to):

• Using hypothesis to provide feedback to each other within an LMS
• Using hypothesis for faculty peer review of online teaching

I would love to hear about implementations, pitfalls, what people tend to struggle with, etc. 

Thanks for any insight you can provide! - Zach

[mdiro...@hypothes.is]

Hi Zach,

This sounds like a great use of the Hypothesis web app! One thing that comes to mind is looking into using our Publisher Groups if you were building out examples to reach a wider audience. As a heads up these groups typically require a partnership with Hypothesis; I believe some educational institutions have found it useful to have partnerships that bundle using our LMS app with students and Publisher groups for public-facing projects.

Other than that I suspect other faculty members will be better sources of reflection here than I can be in my tech support role. I think this is a great question for our community and I hope other folks here give some additional answers as well.

As an FYI, we have an Open Slack for the community; it tends to skew technical but it might also be a good place for a question like this one. We may be opening up another Slack instance soon may cater specifically to the LMSs and pedagogy (we're still finalizing plans). When we do this question might be a fit for that environment as well.

Best,

Michael

[Hakarlfresser]

Zach,

In my few years using Hypothesis "in the wild" there's little support (or tolerance) for us "Hypo-gadflies" in either hallowed walls of Hypothesis or its primary target and lifeblood, the education industry. Unless you're a dues-paying member, "in the wild" Hypo. usage outside of LMS/academe makes you less viable as an audience. To wit, the most recent sessions titled, "Learn More About..." and "...Spotlight on Social... etc." were neither "101" oriented or social. All I got was some allusion to bi-focals in a multi-focal world...but Franklin would have been proud.

If inventive and non-academic application of Hypo. outside the LMS world is your hope, those seemingly democratic attempts aren't going to help you. The "101" promise quickly degenerates into a display of clavicle-dislocating self-adulation with little "welcome to Hypothesis and what it can do for you!". For those of us outside and (dare i say) creatively using Hypothesis to interact with other indie editors, authors, publishers, we're not big on Hypothesis's bottom line. So we buzz around the periphery "wildly", and they just swat at us occasionally.

But have faith. We'll buzz along and keep making Hypo. work in a truly democratic (dare I say, freelance"?) learning mode that the hallowed, ivy-choked halls of the (to para-pun Ike) military-industrial-academic industry fear as a threat to their/its bottom line: independent thought and inventive application of the likes of Hypothesis in self-education. Maybe someday, like mayflies, we'll swarm and Hypo. will have to acknowledge us. Or they'll reach for the Raid...

But if this isn't your "in the wild" goal, Zach, then I digress and withdraw.

Jack in CO