Table of Contents

Utilizing Canvas Peer Review in Discussions

When to Use It

• Class-wide Discussions: Instructors who want everyone in the course to have access to one another’s posted content, but require students to peer review only a few students’ work.

When to Use a Different Approach

• Small Group Discussions: Small groups can only access the work posted in their group discussion area. If instructors would like individuals to review the work posted by a small group, consider using a class-wide discussion and asking each group to nominate one person to post the group’s work.

• When the review comments are meant to be seen by other students in the course. (The Peer Review feature makes comments private to the Reviewer, Reviewed, and Instructor.)

Setup Considerations

• Manually Assign Peer Reviews: If you manually assign peer reviews, there is a risk that someone will be assigned to review a student’s work who has not actually posted anything thus making peer review load unbalanced across the student body. To mitigate this risk, you might manually review the discussion to see which students have posted, then assign peer reviews amongst these students.

• Automatically Assign Peer Reviews: Canvas will only assign peer reviews to those students who completed their initial post. If students post late, then you will need to manually assign and/or adjust peer review assignments to ensure a balanced load across all students.

• You may opt for anonymous peer reviews so Reviewers and Reviewed cannot see one another’s names. However, depending on what is being reviewed and how students review “it,” students may infer who is doing what or out themselves by leaving their name in a comment.

• If students are receiving a grade for their review of a peer in addition to their grade for their initial post, it may be easier to list the two grades separately (see examples that follow).

Privacy Considerations

• The Peer Review feature makes comments private to the Reviewer, Reviewed, and Instructor.

Examples 

These examples represent examples from 2 different course situations; they are not the only or possibly the “best.” They are meant to show 2 functioning examples. The Discussion Settings examples below highlight two primary use cases

• Students complete a rubric as part of the peer review

• Students complete a peer review without a rubric

For either of the settings examples, you may alter the example activity instructions to align with program specifications or with due days in the same module (initial post and peer review due in the same module) or due days in different modules (initial post due in Module A and peer review due in Module B). 

The examples are not mutually exclusive nor are they all-inclusive given the possibilities Canvas provides. You may combine aspects of either example or introduce your own components to form a hybrid approach.

Discussion Settings: Peer Review with Rubric

If a rubric is associated with the discussion, then

• Peer reviewers must use the rubric to provide feedback. Canvas will NOT mark reviews complete until reviewers mark up and/or comment using the rubric. 

  • Students can still attach documents or record audio feedback and/or provide a free-form comment, but they must also use the rubric. Once a rubric is submitted by the reviewer, Canvas will mark the review as complete for the faculty and the reviewer.

• The discussion point allocation must match the points value on the rubric.

If you want to award points for completing peer reviews or assessing peer reviews using a different rubric, we recommend publishing a No Submission assignment and assigning the points there.

Settings Options with Discussion Rubric

The term “assesses” is used for evaluating the quality, thoroughness, etcetera of a post or review using a rubric. The term “award points” is used when students earn full points for completing a post or review.

Discussion Settings: Peer Review no Rubric

If a rubric is NOT associated with the discussion, then

• Peer reviewers must submit at least one comment. Students can attach documents or record audio feedback and/or provide a free-form comment. Once a comment is submitted by the reviewer, Canvas will mark the review as complete for faculty and the student.

Settings Options No Discussion Rubric

The term “assesses” is used for evaluating the quality, thoroughness, etcetera of a post or review using a rubric. The term “award points” is used when students earn full points for completing a post or review.

Activity Instructions Example

Orange text indicates areas that require customization so that the instructions, discussion settings, and assessment methods are clear to students.

05.05 Program Evaluation Project: Rough Draft Peer Review Discussion (Title)

Initial Post Directions (Header 2)

Your final evaluation paper, initially assigned in Module 3, should be in a rough draft form that you can post to this class-wide discussion board for peer review.

When you are ready to post your rough draft:

1. <<Provide any specifics here—students may attach or link documents or link, create, or embed video or audio.>>

2. Post a reply to this discussion that addresses the following:

   • Access to your rough draft

   • State your chosen topic

   • List any areas that you would like your assigned peer reviewers to focus on

After everyone has posted, I will assign you two of your peers’ rough drafts to review. You will be able to access your peer review assignments by returning to this discussion. See Canvas’ How do I know if I have a peer review discussion to complete? article for an overview of how to access peer review discussions.

<<Insert specifics for how the discussion and peer reviews will be graded here—align verbiage with discussion settings and point allocations for initial post and completed reviews.>>

Initial posts are due by Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time.

Peer Review Directions (Header 2)

Before reviewing your peers’ rough drafts:

• Skim through Guidelines for Students - Peer Review for tips on how to approach peer review and for guidance on how to provide constructive feedback.

• Plan on spending about 1-hour per review.

When you are ready to perform a peer review, follow these steps:

1. Select Review Now to access the rough draft you would like to review.

2. Read your peer’s post and review their work. 

   • <<Provide any specifics here—students may download Word documents, track changes, save and upload the document or make suggested edits in linked Google documents (as long as students also complete the rubric); or students can free form comments using only the rubric.>>

3. Provide feedback:

   • Follow the steps as outlined in Canvas’ How do I submit a peer review to a discussion? article to provide feedback. You must complete the rubric! You are not scoring your peers, you are simply providing feedback according to the same criteria that I will use to assess final drafts.

Note: Do NOT simply reply to the discussion thread. Access your peer via the Review Now link then add your feedback to the rubric. Following these steps triggers Canvas to notify both of us that your review is complete.

You may access peer feedback from Grades. See the Canvas article Where can I find my peers' feedback for peer reviewed discussions? for more details.

Initial posts are due by Friday at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time.

Instructor Guide (How to for Instructors)

Orange text indicates areas that may require customization so that the instructions, discussion settings and assessment methods are implemented correctly.

Assigning Peer Reviews

Students will post rough drafts of their Final Evaluation Paper in the 05.05 Program Evaluation Project: Rough Draft Peer Review Discussion by Tuesday 11:59 p.m. MT.

This discussion is built in a way that allows you to use Canvas to assign a specific person to peer review the work of TWO other students. 

To assign peer reviews, 

1. Go to the 05.05 discussion 

2. Select Peer Reviews from the more options menu (the three stacked dots).

3. Assign reviews:

   • You may automatically assign 2 reviews to each student who has posted a rough draft OR

   • You may manually assign reviews. Tip: If you want to assign reviews only to those who submitted work, consider opening the discussion in a new window so you have access to who posted.

See Assign Peer Reviews for visuals on how to assign reviews manually. This article will also walk you through how to know when peer reviews are complete and what students can expect to see on their end once reviews are assigned.

Grading Peer Reviews

Note: When grading a given student, you will see only their initial post and the comments provided to them by their peers. You will NOT see comments to their assigned peers unless you navigate to the peers they were assigned to review.

You can get a quick view of who should earn credit for posting reviews by returning to the 05.05 discussion > Peer Reviews screen. See this Peer Review Screenshot. You will also see the reviewer’s comments in the context of the reviewed student’s discussion post through SpeedGrader.

The 05.05 discussion is worth 15 points. The rubric associated with the discussion is the same rubric students used to provide feedback to their peers—use this to assess the rough drafts shared.

<<If the faculty will be awarding points for completed peer reviews or assessing peer reviews, provide the Peer Review assignment name and additional instruction here.>>

Additional Resources

• Canvas Peer Review - Assignment

• Using Peer Review to Help Students Improve Their Writing, from Washing University in St. Louis

• Student Guidelines for Peer Review, from SERC, Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

• Peer Review Tips

• How do I use peer review discussions in a course?

• How do I create a peer review discussion?

• How do I manually assign peer reviews for a discussion?

• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for a discussion?

• How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor?