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Options for Peer Assessment and Peer Review

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Options for peer assessment and peer review

You can conduct peer assessment manually (eg ask students to exchange scripts by email) but for larger groups it will be easier to use one of the tools available in Canvas.  These will help you to manage the process, make sure it is fair, and have oversight of the quality of reviews that students are writing.

On this page we’ll compare some of these options and signpost the step-by-step guides that will walk you through the processes involved. 

Individual peer review: Canvas vs PeerMark

If you would like individual students to review the individual work of other students you can set this up using a Canvas peer review assignment (marking with SpeedGrader) or by using Turnitin as an external tool and setting up a Peermark assignment within this.

Both options involve the following stages
  • Students submit their assignment – you set an initial assignment due date
  • After the assignment due date work is allocated to peers – there’s a review start date.
  • Student reviews are released to their peers
  • You can view the reviews submitted by students. Canvas give you the option of adding comments, Peermark give you the option of grading reviews.
  • You have the option of marking the initial assignment and releasing your final marks to students.
The table below details how these two tools manage the overall process.  PeerMark is a more sophisticated solution giving you more control of the overall process.  
 

Feature

Canvas/SpeedGrader

Turnitin/PeerMark

Plagiarism review

Yes – set Turnitin as the similarity checker in assignment setup

Yes

Submission types and file sizes

Multiple files (video and audio); 250 MB file size limit

Single file submission; 100 MB file size limit

Automatically assign reviews

Yes

Yes – use automatically distribute papers for review

Manually assign reviews

Yes

Yes – using the distribution tab

Assign multiple reviews to each student

Yes – using automatic or manual approaches

Yes – set a value higher than 1 in Automatically distribute papers for review or use the distribution tab.

Anonymous peer reviews

Yes, this can be set up. Student reviewers cannot see the name of the person whose work they are reviewing.

Set students can view the names of their peers during reviewto no.

Can students who do not submit an assessment conduct reviews

Students won’t be automatically allocated peer reviews, but an instructor can manually assign reviews to a student who did not submit.

Optional setting students without a submission can review

Methods to guide student reviews

Students use the same options that are available to teachers i.e. Canvas rubrics/grading forms, bubble comments, final comments

Prompts via free response and scale questions. Student reviewers can also add bubble comments

Can reviewers assign marks

Only if you add a rubric to the assignment

Yes

How do you monitor and mark reviews

From inside SpeedGrader – you can add comments to this.

Using the PeerMark reviews tab.  You have the option to grade student reviews. You can also download an Excel summary any scale response questions from the Peermark inbox.

Control when reviews are released to students

This is not possible -  reviews are available to students as soon as they are created.

Yes – by setting the peer feedback available from date.

Set a deadline for the review activity

This needs to be done outside the assignment itself  (i.e. by adding a calendar entry.) Students can continue to review work after this time.

Yes – by setting the review until date.

Provide a final mark to students (optional)

By marking the initial assignment in SpeedGrader

Mark using the Turnitin Assignment inbox, post grades in Turnitin, post them in Canvas Grades

How do students know if they have a peer review to complete?

Canvas generates reminders for each stage on the student to-do list and sends an email.

Turnitin generates email notifications to students.  Students need to click on the assessment and open the Turnitin dashboard to complete actions.

How do students access reviews/feedback

By clicking on the assignment (or To-Do list item)

By clicking on the assignment and opening the Turnitin dashboard

Adding peer review to Canvas assignments

If you are setting up a peer review assignment for the first time see our Wayfinder individual peer review assignments in Canvas this takes you through steps involved and signposts the relevant Canvas guides.

The following Canvas guides describe key steps in the process:

Instructor guides

See also our list of avoidable issues with Canvas peer assignments.

Turnitin/Peermark Assignments

Before you can set up a Peermark assignment you need to create an assignment in Canvas that uses Turnitin as an external tool (Canvas Orientation course).  

With this initial assignment set up, you can then use the Turnitin dashboard to set up and configure the settings for the Peermark assignment.

The links below are to the Turnitin website - we have linked to guides that are relevant when we are using Turnitin as an external tool in Canvas.

Instructors

Visit the Turnitin site for a full list of instructor guides for Peermark and a full list of student guides for Peermark.

Peer Review of Canvas Discussions
Group assignments and review of other groups work (inter-group)
Peer assessment of group work (intra-group)

Buddycheck is a Canvas integrated tool for peer evaluation of group work contribution. It can be used to enable students to evaluate their own and their peer's contribution to, and performance in, group work.  The output is an adjustment factor which can be used to update the mark awarded to each student individually.