Peer Review

Peer Review

Peer review can be a powerful activity that helps your students practice editing skills and creating substantive critiques. But how can you avoid lackluster comments and confusion? Give clear instructions to students on navigating the Peer Review process in Canvas and provide them with supports for their feedback to other students.

Setting up Peer Reviews

When you check the box requiring Peer Review in an Assignment you’ll need to answer these questions:

• Do I want to manually assign students or have Canvas automatically assign students?
  • How do I manually assign peer reviews? Links to an external site.
  • How do I automatically assign peer reviews? Links to an external site.

• What dates do I want the initial submission AND the peer review comments due by?
  • Remember that the peer review comments date must be AFTER the due date for the submission.

• Will students provide better feedback in this case if I provide anonymity?
  • You can select “Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously” to allow students to submit feedback without their name attached.

• What support documents or instructions do my students need to provide quality feedback to their peers?
  • Add guides or rubrics as attached documents in the assignment instructions.
  • Add an embedded rubric to the assignment after it has been published via Canvas’ rubric function Links to an external site..

Student Perspective

While most students are familiar with the common functions of Canvas, they may be new to the process of Peer Review. Consider sharing the following links with your students to help them navigate the assignment in Canvas.

• How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete? Links to an external site.
• How do I submit a peer review to an assignment? Links to an external site.
• Where can I find my peers’ feedback for peer reviewed assignments? Links to an external site.

Setting up a successful Peer Review assignment requires planning and care on the part of the instructor, but creating the opportunity for students to analyze one another’s work and grow from the feedback they receive is well worth the effort.