The Vendor is required to provide out a preferred long-term solution for social annotation in terms of features, usability, compliance, and cost-effectiveness.
- The findings will help guide a potential procurement decision, ensuring the selection of the most effective social annotation tool for our university faculty and students.
- Objective:
• Ability for learners to annotate texts, PDFs, and web-based content.
• Support for private and public annotation layers.
• Collaboration tools (e.g., threaded discussions, group annotations, user tagging).
• LTI Integration with Canvas LMS, including student rosters and gradebook.
• Reporting and analytics features.
• Administration panel for central troubleshooting of activities.
- Technical Requirements:
• Cloud-based with SSO capabilities.
• Compliance with institutional privacy & security policies.
• Compliance with institutional accessibility requirements.
• Mobile and cross-platform compatibility.
• Retention of activities for 5+ years.
- Performance Expectations:
• High system uptime and reliability.
• Scalable infrastructure to support multiple users.
• Low-latency interaction.
• Preferred features and capabilities (not required)
• Robust vendor support, including help documentation and responsive email
• Ability to annotate multimedia content (audio and video material)
• Ability to post multimedia annotations (student-generated audio and video recordings)
• Modern user interface
• Ease of use for instructors
• Ease of use for students
• Seamless background integration with Canvas without requiring manual steps to resync gradebooks and rosters
• AI capabilities to support instructor efficiency in providing feedback
• AI coaching to support students in providing thorough, high-quality comments
• Schedule Constraints
• If decision is not to renew Hypothesis, recommend two full academic quarters for communication and migration of activities (Winter and Spring 2026)
• System testing and evaluation period: November 3-30, 2025
• Report finalization and recommendation deadline: December 2025
• Project Management Requirements
• Regular check-ins with the procurement team and stakeholders.
• Coordination with IT for LMS integration testing.
• Periodic status updates to leadership and faculty representatives.
• Personnel Requirements and Expectations
• Vendor representatives must provide product demonstrations and test environments for individual experimentation.
• Vendor appoints a single account manager or customer success manager for ongoing support and coordination with university.
- Services:
• Conduct a comparative analysis of social annotation tools for integration with the LMS, including hypothesis, perusall, and the comprehension tool offered by feedback fruits.
• Identify functional, technical, and performance differences among the tools.
• Evaluate integration capabilities with our existing learning management system (LMS).
• Assess user experience and accessibility features.
• Gather feedback from faculty and student testers.
• Define potential implementation steps and support requirements for each tool.
• Compile a recommendation report based on findings.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: February 17, 2026
