Highlighting and note-taking tools let you mark content and add notes directly in the webtext. Additionally, if annotation sharing is enabled for your webtext, you can also share your notes with your students.
Notes you create in a webtext will be visible for all sections using that webtext in the current term and any future terms.
Highlight and make notes
To highlight, select your desired text, then choose a color from the selection toolbar that appears. If you’d like to change or remove a highlight, click the highlighted text, then select a new color from the menu or click the X to remove the highlight.
To make a note, click Make a Note after selecting your text. A note field will appear where you can type your note. You can format your note using bold, italics, underlining, and bullet points.
You can also paste URLs into your notes. If you paste a video URL, it will automatically embed the video for playback right inside the note.
Other URLs will show a preview of the webpage or file.
If your note includes an embedded video or link preview, you can use the options menu in the top right corner of the preview to make changes to it. Click Convert to URL to remove the preview but keep the link, or click Delete to remove both the preview and link.
Previews may show a “Couldn’t generate link preview” message for links that require login, such as a page in your LMS. If you know the link will work for your students, you can convert the preview to a URL to avoid any confusion.
After creating your note, click Save. Your notes will appear in the right margin of the webtext, marked with a gray note icon.
To make changes to one of your notes, click on it, and then choose Edit or Delete from the options menu.
Share notes
If your webtext has annotation sharing enabled, you can make notes visible to both you and your students. Shared notes are a great way to provide additional context, offer resources, or call attention to key points directly in the webtext.
After creating a note, check the box labeled “Share note with students” and click Save. Note that only webtexts that have annotation sharing enabled will have this option.
Keep in mind that if you highlight a note and share it with students, the highlight will only appear on your end. This prevents it from conflicting with highlights students may have already made.
Once saved, your shared note will be visible to all students and instructors in the course. It will appear on the webtext page where you created it, as well as in their My Notes page. Their own notes will be marked with a gray note icon, while the notes you’ve shared will appear with a teal shared note icon alongside your name.
Students receive notifications whenever you add a shared note to a page that they’ve already visited. When they click the notification, they’re taken directly to the page and section of text where you shared the note.
View your notes
To view all of your notes, open the Tools Menu in the upper-right corner of the webtext and select My Notes.
On the My Notes page, your highlights and notes are organized by chapter and page. You can expand or collapse chapters using the arrow next to the chapter name, and then you can click any page title to revisit that page.
The three-dot menu to the right of the note also lets you return to the page as well as delete highlights and notes.
Your private notes will be marked with a gray icon, and shared notes with a teal icon.
You can also filter your notes using the drop-down menu at the top of the page by selecting all notes, highlights, private notes, shared notes, or outdated notes (if available).
Notes across sections and terms
Your notes are automatically available across all of your sections in the same term. When you create, edit, or delete a note in one section, the changes are visible to all sections using that webtext.
When you edit or delete a shared note, there will be a message reminding you that the note is synced across your courses.
When you teach with the same webtext in a new term, your notes from the most recent previous term are imported automatically. When you sign into your new webtext, you’ll receive a notification letting you know that notes have been imported from a previous term.
For details about reviewing notes that may need attention after being imported or synced, visit our article, What happens to my notes when the webtext is updated?
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