iPeer is a peer review application for asking students to assess their team members’ contributions to group assignments. These evaluations can help students reflect on teamwork and their own participation. Evaluations can also help you understand how well groups are working together and how much each individual student is contributing.
| Access | You will need to request an iPeer account from us first. Once your account is created, you can log in to iPeer. | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free. | |
| Bandwidth | Low demand on internet connections. | |
| Canvas Integration | Works in coordination with Canvas. | |
| Privacy | iPeer is developed and maintained at UBC. | |
| Similar UBC-Supported Tools | Y | peerScholar is also centrally supported for student peer assessment of group work. |
What can I use it for?
You can use iPeer to help you assess and improve student group work in a variety of ways:
- Creating custom criteria to guide students in evaluating one another and, optionally, themselves
- Using the evaluation outcomes formatively, by sharing the anonymized feedback with each evaluated student
- Using the evaluation outcomes summatively, to inform your distribution of group marks
This tool guide was last reviewed in April 2023 with version 3.4.10 of iPeer.
What do I need to use iPeer?
A supported web browser
iPeer runs in your web browser and supports using Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari.
An iPeer account
iPeer accounts must be requested and created through the LT Hub, as outlined below.
Tips
- Students will not need to contact anyone to create an iPeer account. Their accounts will automatically be made when you link your Canvas course to an iPeer course.
How can I plan my course design and delivery to use iPeer?
Before you dive in, it’s best to establish your evaluation approach from a pedagogical perspective. This includes determining a) how you will use student peer assessments, b) how often you will run assessments, and c) how they will relate to grades. Answering these questions will guide you in the right direction as you set up iPeer.
Click any bar below to explore considerations for iPeer.
Consider the overall goals of your student peer assessments
Once you decide to use student peer assessments in a group assignment, consider the following:
- What are you hoping to achieve with the peer evaluations? What are you hoping to achieve with the self-evaluations?
- In light of your goals, what assessment criteria (e.g., rubrics) will be best for students to evaluate the contributions of each group member?
- When will you ask students to complete evaluations: in the middle, at the end of the group assignment, or both?
- Should the evaluation scores count towards the group assignment grade? If so, to what extent?
- Will you share the results of evaluation with students, and if so, to what extent: sharing grades, sharing feedback, or both?
Your answers should relate to the goals of the group assignment. For example, if developing teamwork skills is an important goal, you could plan on using student peer assessments multiple times during the assignment. This way, students will learn how they are doing and have a chance to improve.
Tips
- You may find the UBC-developed Student Peer Assessment Planning Guide helpful in making and tracking these decisions. The guide will walk you through all the key questions to ask yourself.
Develop your student peer assessment criteria
iPeer offers three types of evaluations to consider as you develop your criteria:
- Simple Evaluation: Students evaluate group members by distributing a set number of points (e.g., 100) among the members. This approach offers a very simple evaluation that will provide you with a high-level idea of the group dynamics.
- Rubrics Evaluation: Students evaluate group members based on criteria that you set, similar to a multiple-choice questionnaire. This approach will provide more specific and detailed information about each group member, depending on the questions you ask.
- Mixed Evaluation: Students evaluate group members using a combination of short-answer and rubric-style questions. This approach gives the highest degree of customization and therefore is suitable for evaluations that require more nuance and open response.
Tips
- Always encourage students to justify their evaluations and provide constructive feedback as part of the process, regardless of which approach you choose.
- You can involve students in criteria creation, so they have a better understanding of what is expected as a contributing group member. For example, at the beginning of a group project, share the rubrics you are considering with students and invite their constructive feedback on how these might be changed.
Decide on the timing of your student peer assessments
If you plan to use student peer assessments formatively in the course—meaning that results will be shared with you and with the students—it's best to have multiple evaluations during the group assignment. You could consider doing them at the midway point and at the end. That timing will let students know how they are doing and give them a chance to improve based on the peer feedback received.
However, it is also important to consider the possible implications on group dynamics of sharing negative feedback. You will need to be prepared to support students in pivoting in a positive manner.
If you plan to use student peer assessments summatively in the course, time the evaluation near the end of the group assignment, once all the major activities are complete. That timing will best let students evaluate the overall participation and contribution of peers and help you apply the outcomes towards grading, if you choose.
Tips
- In iPeer, you can release the peer grades, the peer feedback, or both to students. Any approach will let students check how their group members evaluated their contributions.
- If you decide to release the feedback, you can review what students submitted first. Reviewing allows you to hold back any disrespectful or unhelpful comments, if you choose.
Choose how outcomes will influence grades
If the student peer assessments will influence grades, you should communicate to students in the beginning how exactly the peer evaluations will be used, so students are not caught off guard.
If you decide to use the evaluations for grading, ask yourself the following:
- How will you examine the evaluations to ensure fairness and accuracy? When grades are on the line, students may sometimes try to influence them with exaggerated reviews (good and bad).
- Will you assign points for completing the evaluations? This strategy can help increase response rates.
- Will you use the evaluations as a reference for the final grades, or use them to impact the grades directly? If using it directly, what grading calculation will best fit for your course? Typically, evaluations count for a small percentage (e.g., 5-25%) of a group assignment 1, with you assigning the rest.
- Will students' self-evaluations count toward the grades? Generally, self-evaluations are not the most accurate and are best left out of the calculation.
Request an iPeer account
- Access our LT Hub contact form.
- Under "Support Requested", select iPeer.
- Fill out the rest of the required fields and click Submit.
- Once your iPeer account is created, we will email you. Then you can begin setting up your course.
Set up an iPeer course
Because iPeer works with Canvas, you will set up your iPeer course based on your Canvas course. This setup process is the same whether you are using Canvas for other course activities or not.
- Please note that these steps must be completed by an instructor with teacher access in the corresponding Canvas course.
- Once you have received an iPeer account, please log in to ipeer.elearning.ubc.ca with your UBC CWL (Campus-Wide Login).
- Click Courses in the top navigation.
- Click Add Course Based on Canvas.
- If this is your first time using iPeer, click Authorize when prompted to allow iPeer to access Canvas.
- Select your course in the drop-down menu and click Next.
- In the "Add Course" form, add the course information and click Save.
- Click the new course title to open the course.
- Within the "Canvas" box, click Import Users from Canvas.
- Confirm the courses to import from/to, then click Import. Students in your Canvas course will be added to your iPeer course as students, and any co-instructors, teaching assistants, and instructional support staff will be added as instructors.
- All the imported information can be double-checked once the import is complete. If you see any errors, please contact us in the LT Hub.
- Students will now be able to log in to your iPeer course from ipeer.elearning.ubc.ca using their UBC CWL.
Create student groups for iPeer evaluations
You can create student groups either by importing groups from Canvas or by manually setting up groups in iPeer.
Import groups from Canvas
- Log in to your Canvas course and click People in the Course Navigation.
- Click the +Group Set blue button in the upper right side of the screen.
- Enter a name and pick how you want to structure the groups, then click Save.
- Adjust the students in the groups, as needed.
- Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
- Click the course title to open the course.
- Within the "Canvas" box, click Import Groups From Canvas.
- Confirm the courses to import from/to, then click Import to use the groups in your iPeer course.
Set up groups in iPeer
- Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
- Click the course title to open the course.
- Within the "Groups" box, click List Groups.
- Click Add Group.
- Give the group a number and name, then assign students by clicking the student name and Assign to place them in the group.
- Click Add Group.
- Repeat this process of adding a group for however many groups you need.
Tips
- If students are assigned to multiple groups in your Canvas course, setting up groups in iPeer will be easier. It can be difficult to import the correct groups from Canvas when working with multiple groups there.
Make your own criteria for iPeer evaluations
Once you have set up your course and groups, you need to decide how to set up the evaluation criteria. Evaluations can either use new criteria that you make yourself or use existing criteria from another instructor or course. Please note that the new criteria is fully customizable by you, but existing criteria cannot be changed.
If you would like to create new criteria yourself, follow the steps below. If you will use existing criteria, you can move to the next section on creating the evaluation.
- Log in to iPeer, and click Evaluation in the top navigation.
- Decide on the type of evaluation that you want to use:
- Simple Evaluation: Students evaluate group members by distributing a set number of points (e.g., 100) among the members. This approach offers a very simple evaluation that will provide you with a high-level idea of the group dynamics.
- Rubrics Evaluation: Students evaluate group members based on criteria that you set, similar to a multiple-choice questionnaire. This approach will provide more specific and detailed information about each group member, depending on the questions you ask.
- Mixed Evaluation: Students evaluate group members using a combination of short-answer and rubric-style questions. This approach gives the highest degree of customization and therefore is suitable for evaluations that require more nuance and open response.
- For a simple evaluation:
- Click Simple Evaluations, then click Add Simple Evaluation.
- Fill in the name, description, and points per member (e.g., a group of 3 students with 10 points per member will generate an evaluation with 30 points to distribute).
- Review the evaluation carefully, because you will not be able to modify it once you save it.
- When you are ready, click Save.
- For a rubrics evaluation:
- Click Rubrics, then click Add Rubric.
- Fill in the form.
- Level of Mastery: Sets the number of options students can choose from when rating the criteria (e.g., use three levels to allow students to choose among three options, such as "Poor", "Average", and "Good").
- Number of Criteria: Sets how many criteria students will rate (e.g., use five to allow students to evaluate five aspects of their teammates' work).
- Click Next.
- Fill in the table that's generated with the "Criteria" text (what you want students to assess about each other), "Level of Mastery" text (what options students will have in assessing each criterion), "Specific Comment" text (any notes about how students should assess each criterion), and "Criteria Weight" (how much weight each criterion will receive).
- Review the evaluation carefully, because you will not be able to modify it once you save it.
- When you are ready, click Save.
- For a mixed evaluation:
- Click Mixed Evaluations, then click Add Mixed Evaluation.
- Fill in the name and other settings.
- Select a question type, and click Add to add fields for that question. Add as many question types as you would like, filling in the fields that appear for each one.
- Review the evaluation carefully, because you will not be able to modify it once you save it.
- When you are finished, click Save.
- Once you are finished setting up the criteria, you can create an evaluation event to specify when students will fill in the evaluation. These steps are explained in the next section.
Tips
- You will need to create what's called an "evaluation event" in iPeer, before students can see or use your criteria to evaluate their peers. Refer to the next section for instructions on how to do this.
- iPeer has existing criteria that you can use from other instructors, if you don't want to create your own. You'll be able to preview these criteria options when you create the evaluation event.
Create an iPeer evaluation
Once you have set up your course and groups, and optionally made your own criteria, you are ready to ask students to assess their peers. To run an evaluation in iPeer, you need to set up what is called an "evaluation event".
- Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
- Click the course title to open the course.
- Within the "Evaluation Events" box, click Add Event.
- Add the title and description.
- Set the evaluation type that you will use as the template type:
- Simple Evaluation: Students evaluate group members by distributing a set number of points (e.g., 100) among the members. This approach offers a very simple evaluation that will provide you with a high-level idea of the group dynamics.
- Rubrics Evaluation: Students evaluate group members based on criteria that you set, similar to a multiple-choice questionnaire. This approach will provide more specific and detailed information about each group member, depending on the questions you ask.
- Mixed Evaluation: Students evaluate group members using a combination of short-answer and rubric-style questions. This approach gives the highest degree of customization and therefore is suitable for evaluations that require more nuance and open response.
- In the drop-down menu underneath the type, select which specific evaluation that you will use: either the one you created when you made your own criteria (see the section above for how to do this) or one from another instructor or course.
- Click Preview to see what any template will look like.
- Fill out the rest of the form and click Submit.
- Notify your students that the iPeer evaluation will be available to access from ipeer.elearning.ubc.ca. iPeer cannot send e-mail notifications, so we recommend using Canvas to communicate this message.
- Students will be able to fill out their evaluations during the dates that you set.
Tips
- Explain to your students why you are using iPeer. Let students know that evaluations can foster better teamwork within their groups and help them become more familiar and comfortable with evaluation practices.
- Tell students how peer evaluations will factor into grades, if you are using evaluations this way. Stress how evaluations can promote accountability and fairer grading for group work.
- Although evaluation criteria cannot be changed, you can edit any evaluation event. From the iPeer course's page, click the "List Evaluation Events" link. Click the event title, and scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the edit link.
Review and release iPeer evaluation outcomes
- Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
- Click the course title to open the course.
- Within the "Evaluation Events" box, click List Evaluation Events.
- For the evaluation you want to review, click Results under the "View" column.
- On this overview page, you can see how many students have completed the evaluation, and if they submitted late or not. You can drill down into the results for any group to get a detailed look at outcomes.
- To allow the results to be visible to students, click Release All Comments or Release All Grades. In either case, students will receive their group's comments or grades anonymously, so they will not know who provided what feedback.
- If you prefer to customize what to release first, click the results of each group to see the available options for customizing what to release.
- Notify your students when their evaluation outcomes will be available in iPeer. iPeer cannot send e-mail notifications, so we recommend using Canvas to communicate this message.
Tips
- You can also export outcomes from this page as a spreadsheet. This approach can be helpful if you would rather work with or distribute the data offline.
- Results can be released automatically to students on a date, if you prefer. When you create or edit an evaluation event, enable the "Auto-Release Results" option, then set the "Results Released From" date.
Send iPeer grades to your Canvas course
If you will be using the evaluation outcomes as grades, you can add them to the Canvas Gradebook. You can either sync iPeer grades directly with Canvas (best for situations requiring less customization) or export data from iPeer to upload manually to Canvas (best for situations requiring more customization).
Sync iPeer grades directly with Canvas
- Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
- Click the course title to open the course.
- Within the "Evaluation Events" box, click List Evaluation Events.
- For the evaluation you want to sync, click Results under the "View" column.
- Click Push Grades to Canvas at the top.
- Click Export and the grades will be sent to Canvas.
Export iPeer grades then upload them to Canvas
- Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
- Click the course title to open the course.
- Within the "Evaluation Events" box, click Export Evaluation Results.
- Click Export and a CSV file will be downloaded to your computer. Open this file with a spreadsheet software like Excel to make and save changes.
- Log in to your Canvas course, and click Grades in the Course Navigation.
- Click Actions and select Import.
- Click Choose File or Browse (depending on your browser), and locate the file you edited on your computer.
- Click Open.
- Click Upload Data. The Canvas Gradebook will be updated.
Tips
- Syncing iPeer grades will create a new assignment and related column in the Canvas Gradebook for your course. But students will not need to do anything new (i.e., they will not have to complete the assignment). iPeer must create a new assignment to sync grades; it's not possible to sync iPeer grades with an existing Canvas assignment.
- Once an iPeer evaluation is released, please do not change the total points possible for the Canvas assignment that it syncs with. iPeer cannot see changes to the total points in the Canvas assignment. It will continue to send grades to Canvas based on the original total points possible.
- Qualitative feedback cannot be directly synced with Canvas, as it doesn't have a numerical value to send. In these cases, use the export option to manage scores, then upload them to Canvas.
- The export and upload option is best for considering outside factors in student grades. These factors might include participation in iPeer activities or performance in a group presentation.
Where can I get more support with iPeer?
Technical support
If you have trouble with iPeer:
- Contact your faculty’s Instructional Support Unit as your first point of contact.
- Contact us for further assistance:
604 827 4775 or LT.hub@ubc.ca or visit the LT Hub online.
Pedagogical support
- The UBC Online Teaching Program provides several tips for fostering effective group activities in online courses (Module 4.6). You can also hear from faculty about engaging students in the assessment process (Module 3.5) and read about preparing students for self- and peer assessment.
- There are various strategies for implementing peer evaluation. To determine the most suitable peer evaluation technique, check out the Using Peer Assessment to Make Teamwork Work guide (20-page PDF), written by McGill University. UBC Arts ISIT also has an overview of ideas and strategies for student peer assessments.
- Connect with an educational consultant for guidance on how to incorporate student peer assessment into your course, by completing the CTLT request form and choosing “Consultation.”
Learn more
- For more how-to instructions, explore UBC Educational Technology Support’s video playlist for getting started with iPeer.
- Our tool finder provides a detailed comparison between the student peer assessment tools that are centrally supported at UBC.
- Teaching and Learning Services. (2020). Using peer assessment to make teamwork work. Montreal: Teaching and Learning Services, McGill University.