CUNY Academic Commons

Hi All,

The social annotation tool Hypothesis has deprecated the via link mechanism to run the annotation tool on webpages and pdfs.

Many faculty (including myself) used the via link extension to connect students directly to annotatable texts, see below:

course schedule: https://psy327f22.commons.gc.cuny.edu/course-schedule/
sample link: https://via.hypothes.is/https://nobaproject.com/textbooks/laurie-hurson-new-textbook/modules/factors-influencing-learning

I think that deprecating the via link also deprecated the annotation of PDFS on the commons via the plugin since the via link was the mechanism for creating annotatable pdfs ( hough the tool still works on commons pages somehow?)

When you click the sample link above you are taken to a page with a message from hypothesis about the tool deprecation and new options for annotation, which include the chrome extension, bookmarklet, and embedding the tool in a site.
- https://web.hypothes.is/help/embedding-hypothesis-in-websites-and-platforms/

Many faculty use social annotation and the Commons was one of the more seamless avenues through which to engage students in this process. In my experience, it is almost impossible to require student to use a certain browser or ask them to bookmark a tool and use it to annotate readings so the first two options are a no go. So a few questions:

- would it be possible to create a way to "embed hypothesis" so faculty could use the tool on pdfs on their sites?
- can you look into the plugin and see if there might be a way to update it to work on PDFs on the Commons? (these may be related questions?)
- looking all of this over, do you all see another way we might still provide access to hypothesis for social annotation?

I understand that we cannot provide a way to use hypothesis for social annotation on non-commons pages as this is beyond our purview but it would be great if we could at least figure out a way to provide access to the tool for use on PDFs on our site.