MCD2040: Managing People and Organisations.

Instructions for students

The goal of using Perusall (a social reading platform) is to enhance your learning of
business and how businesses are managed by providing an interactive learning
environment where everyone can see each other’s questions and comments. And you
can earn marks while engaging in these social reading activities based on the quality
of your comments

When does it start?

Perusall exercises take place every fortnight. Weeks 2,4,6,8 and 10. In total it is worth
10% of your final grade.
After that, every fortnightly exercise is worth 2%.
Students get a fortnight to complete this task. The fortnightly Perusall activity opens
on midnight Sunday of the first week and the deadline is on a Saturday 6pm AEST of
the second week.
Students will not be granted any special considerations or extensions for this activity.
Once the deadline expires, this activity is deemed complete.

How do I register in Perusall?

Registering in Perusall is easy! Just follow the instructions below:
2 ways to get this done,
1 – You can google search for Peruall.com and find the website.
2 - Open this link: Perusall.com or copy-and-paste it in your browser.
Then,
Click “Login”:
Step 3 - Then you must,
Log in using your Monash College student email address and password,

Step 4 - Enter your Monash College student email address and password
Step 5 - Enter your Monash email address again and tick the two boxes to agree to
the Terms of Services and Privacy policy; and then click “Submit”

This is an incorrect email

address. Only use your
Monash email address.

Step 6 - You may be asked to verify your email address. Check your inbox to confirm
the email address
Step 7 - Once verified, you will be sent back to Perusall to complete the setup. In this
page, follow the steps:
• “Create or enrol in a course.”
• “I am a student.”

• Copy and paste: Enter the course code (your tutor will give you a code
to register or you can find this course code in your week 1 tutorial slides).

Step 8 - Almost done!! Enter your Monash student ID and click “OK.
Enrolling into the course without your student ID may mean your grades will NOT be
recorded and you will get a zero mark!!

Step 9 - Congratulations! You are now registered in Perusall!! Click “Work on

Assignment” to start the assignment!
What do you need to do?
You must make at least ten (10) annotations for the fortnightly annotations
assessments and 15 annotations for the MCP2 annotations asssessment (e.g.,
comments, questions, examples, etc.).

Examples of annotations:

i) that are good and meet expectations;

ii) that require improvement; and

ii) that are deficient

Examples are provided on Moodle. Please “Perusall Annotations” folder in the in

MCD2040 Moodle page.

In the folder, you will also find video guides on Perusall.

How does it work?

Every fortnight (from the first week Sunday 00:00:00 – the second week Saturday
6PM (13 days), students are randomly assigned to a Perusall group. As mentioned
above, you must make at least 10 annotations. Your annotations are anonymous for
other students but NOT for the Unit Leader and to your tutors.

In addition, you can reply to someone’s questions or comments by adding your ideas.
You can also ask questions if you are unable to understand any part of the materials!

Moreover, you can “upvote” a group member’s comment (think “like” on Facebook).
Just click the question mark to indicate “I have the same question,” or click the green
checkmark to indicate “this answer helped my understanding”. Asking questions is
good, and it’s better if you also share your thoughts. Your questions may even
generate discussion in your group. Isn’t that great!
How is it going to be marked?
Research shows that by annotating thoughtfully, you’ll learn more and get better
grades; So, here’s what “annotating thoughtfully” means: Effective annotations deeply
engage points in the readings, stimulate discussion, offer informative questions or
comments, and help others by addressing their questions or confusions. To this end
your annotations are evaluated on the basis of quality, timeliness, quantity, and
distribution:

Quality
The reading replaces the lectures so that you can engage in more useful activities in
class. Therefore, it is important that you read the text thoughtfully and attempt to lay
the foundation for the work in class. Each of your annotations is assigned one of the
following evaluations:
• 3 = Exceptional
• 2 = Demonstrates thorough and thoughtful reading AND insightful interpretation
of the reading
• 1 = Demonstrates reading, but no (or only superficial) interpretation of the
reading
• 0 = Does not demonstrate any thoughtful reading or interpretation

Quantity
We compute your overall score using your 10 highest-quality annotations (there is
no limit to the annotations you can make) for each assignment, so be sure to write at
least this number to ensure the best score. Because we want you to engage in a
natural conversation with your classmates through your annotations, your overall
score only depends only on these 10 highest-quality annotations. So, as long as
you have 10 high-quality annotations, a brief response to another student (e.g.,
answering “Yes” to what is just a yes or no question) won’t hurt your overall score,
even though by itself that response is nominally a “0.”

Timeliness
The work done in class depends on you having done the reading in advance, so
completing the reading and posting your annotations before the posted deadline is
required to receive credit.
If you fail to make any annotations before the due date, you will receive a “0”
and no extensions will be granted!!
Distribution
To lay the foundation for understanding the in-class activities, you must at least
familiarize yourself with each assignment in its entirety. Annotating only part of the text
and/or failing to distribute your annotations throughout the document lowers your
overall score.

Overall Evaluation
You will receive an overall evaluation for each reading assignment based on the
criteria above as follows:
• 3 = exceptional (rarely given)
• 2 = meets expectations
• 1 = needs improvement
• 0 = insufficient
The total Perusall grades will be imported to Gradebook in Week 12.

Frequently Asked Questions??

Question 1
A few students have said they will be doing Perusall on Saturdays as they have
other commitments and are concerned that there will be very little left after other
students have commented. They wanted to know if they make a comment that
is similar to an earlier response whether this will count against them? This is
assuming it is a genuine response they haven’t copied, it just happens to be
similar (which is understandable if they answer the same question).

The extension of this is how does the system differentiate between genuine
responses which happen to be similar compared students who have merely
paraphrased an earlier comment?

Answer:
If you have waited till the last day to do the Perusall activity then it may be a possibility
that other students have commented on the text (discussion/trigger points), and your
comments may seem similar to previous comments.

Note: Perusall will flag any identical comments (or inappropriate or abusive comments)
but not rephrased ones. Flagged comments are not counted towards a student's
score.
Question 2
Do questions count towards the 10 annotations? Do responses to other
students’ questions count for marks?

Answer
The Perusall scoring mainly looks at the quality of ALL the annotations posted by the
students. Questions do count as part of 10 annotations.

I have provided an example of a question in the “Sample Perusall Activity” document.

Question 3
How is the overall final grade calculated? Is it an average of the 10 comments
or cumulative for example?

Answer
Each comment is graded on its own merit and the overall comment is average out at
the end to give a final score. It is the quality of each of the annotations posted by the
student that matters.

Question 4
A few students were confused about the timeline of when a topic's Perusall
occur?

Answer
The Perusall activity opens at Midnight Sunday in the first week of the fortnight and
closes on Saturday 6pm the following week of the fortnight.

Please note the due date for

completing the fortnightly
Perusall activity will NOT be
extended under any
circumstances.