Peer Review Technology

Introduction to Peer Review Technologies

Peer review can take place in the face-to-face classroom, online, or a combination of both. Sophisticated technology is not needed for a peer review assignment but technology can help students and instructors to complete and facilitate the peer review process.

This resource will outline the main benefits for peer review technology and provide four main technologies for consideration: paper and pen, discussion forums, video and conferencing tools, and peer review software. The resource will conclude with a feature comparison and a case study.

Paper and Pen

You can complete a peer review assignment by simply forming groups and asking students to share their assignments with the group members. Students can provide written or verbal feedback. This can take place face-to-face or students can share using email or other file sharing software.

Main shortcoming: grading is manual; anonymity is difficult.
Main benefit: oral feedback and discussion may be easier and more beneficial than written feedback alone.

Discussion Forums

Most learning management systems include a discussion forum. You can complete a peer review assignment by simply forming groups and asking students to share their assignments with the group members via the discussion forum. After everyone has uploaded their assignment, students can review the submissions of their group members and provide feedback via the discussion forum. Access to the groups can be limited to group members only or to all students. Allowing all students to see the submissions and feedback from all students regardless or group membership may benefit student learning.

Shortcomings: grading is manual.
Main benefits: asynchronous feedback allows for flexible scheduling; allowing all students to see all submission and all feedback may be beneficial.

Video and Conferencing Tools

Video and web based conferencing tools can allow students to meet, share, and discuss their assignments.

Shortcomings: administration and auto grading will be difficult or not possible; it will be difficult for instructors to schedule and facilitate the peer review phases.
Main benefit: oral feedback and discussion may be easier and more beneficial than written feedback alone.

Peer Review Software

Technology such as peerScholar that was developed specifically for the purpose of completing all phases of a peer review makes it easy to set up, implement, and complete the peer review process for an assignment. Grading is easy too!

Shortcomings: students do not meet face to face and it is difficult to discuss back and forth; students only have access to the reviews that they received from their group members and cannot see the review that other students completed for their peers.
Benefits:

  • Increases the scalability of peer review
    • Many peer review set-up tasks are automated
    • Facilitation and activity management tools are built-in
    • Streamlines feedback and assessment for large classes
    • Automates final grade calculation
  • Provides confidential and collated results
  • Streamlines peer review activities for students Is a “one stop shop” for peer review activities
  • Enables activities to take place in any location, asynchronously

peerScholar

peerScholar is an evidence-based peer assessment platform that supports the development of core transferable skills like critical thought, creative thought, and effective communication.

Steve Joordens – peerScholar

Integration with our learning management system, Brightspace

peerScholar is fully integrated with your Brightspace course. A link from the course will launch directly into the activity in peerScholar and the associated activity will be ready to setup, edit, or complete. Integration with the LMS allows:

  1. Single sign-on – students and instructors log into the Brightspace course only
  2. Classlist syncing – the classlist in peerScholar will be identical to the classlist in Brightspace
  3. Grade book syncing – all grading for an activity can take place in peerScholar and there are multiple ways to update the Brightspace grade book for a given peerScholar activity. Syncing grades is great when there is one peerScholar activity in the course.

Specifications Table

Use the following table when determining the best technology to use for your peer review assignment.

 
  Pen/Oral Discussion Forum Online rooms / Video Conference Peer Review Software
Auto assign peer reviewers or form groups ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔
Manually assign peer reviewers or form groups ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Allow various file types ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Allow anonymous feedback ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔
Sync with gradebook ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔
Auto grading ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔
Synchronous completion of peer review phases ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘
Asynchronous completion of peer review phases ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔
Allocate assignments for review Manual Automated Partially automated Fully automated
Activity management tools Manual Limited Limited Full suite
Activity monitoring tools Manual Limited Manual Full suite
Administration of the peer review process Manual Partially automated Partially automated Fully automated
Scheduling Manual Automated Partially automated Fully automated
Enforce dates + times Manual Manual Manual Fully automated

See also Setting-up peerScholar in Your Course.

References

Resource created by Denise C.