Staff and students can annotate or comment on all resource types within Talis Engage. This is a great way for you to encourage class discussion on important elements of the content within a course. Users are assigned a colour for their highlights and avatar when they first use Talis Engage, and this colour follows them through their use of the system.
As well as making class comments (available to everyone who accesses the resource), users can also make personal/private notes visible only to them.
Note that if someone replies directly to a comment you have made, you will receive an email with the details.
Commenting on documents
To create a new comment on a document, a user can highlight the body of text they want to write a comment on. The text highlight in 'their colour' and a comment box appears on the right of the screen. At this point the user can choose whether to:
- Post their comment with their name
- Post anonymously
- Make the comment a personal note instead
Other users can then choose to reply to existing comments, or click on an Agree icon to show support, to build a discussion.
Discussion taking place on a Talis Engage resource:
A personal note on a Talis Engage resource, hidden from other users:
Commenting on images and non-text elements of resources
To add a comment, click on the image or non-text element - this will add a pin where you clicked, prompting the user to add a comment or personal note to that specific point on the image.
Again, instructors and students comments will appear as pins over the resource, with each person having a different colour. This makes it easy to see if it is the same users commenting on a point, or whether there are multiple students engaging in the conversation.
Comments on an image in Talis Elevate:
Commenting on audio files
On audio files, you will see comments appear across the timeline of the recording. To write a comment, simply click the pencil icon whilst the audio is playing, or select a point on the timeline, then click the pencil icon at the bottom right of the file window. Users will see all other users' comments show on this timeline as well.
Comments on an audio file in Talis Engage, together with pencil icon and markers at bottom of screen:
Other Settings
Files which are uploaded into Talis Engage are presented within a frame. The frame contains other tools which users should find useful when interacting with the content, note that not all options will necessarily appear, depending on the nature of the file uploaded.
Header options in Talis Engage:
From left to right, these buttons offer the following:
- Resource settings: administrator can toggle on / off class commenting and download settings
- Description of document (if one has been provided)
- Option to download the original file (if enabled) / class comments / personal notes
- Go to previous / next page
- View accessibility statement / show help / log out
Left hand side frame:
From top to bottom, these buttons offer the following:
- Search the document (if text-based)
- Table of Contents (if one has been generated)
- Page View
- Toggle on / off class comments and personal notes