iPeer Instructor Guide

Request an iPeer account

1. Access our LT Hub contact form.
2. Under "Support Requested", select iPeer.
3. Fill out the rest of the required fields, and click Submit.
4. 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.

1. Once you have received an iPeer account, please log in to ipeer.elearning.ubc.ca with your UBC CWL (Campus-Wide Login).
2. Click Courses in the top navigation.
3. Click Add Course Based on Canvas.
   • If this is your first time using iPeer, click Authorize when prompted to allow iPeer to access Canvas.
4. Select your course in the drop-down menu, and click Save.
5. Click the new course title, and within the Canvas box, click Import Users from Canvas. 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.
   • Please note that this step must be completed by an instructor with teacher access in the corresponding Canvas course.
6. 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 by either importing groups from Canvas or manually setting up groups in iPeer.

Make your own criteria for iPeer evaluations

Once you have set up your course and groups, you need to decide whether the evaluation will use new criteria you make yourself or existing criteria from another instructor or course.

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.

1. Log in to iPeer, and click Evaluation in the top navigation.
2. Decide on the type of evaluation you want to use:
   • Simple Evaluations: Students evaluate group members by distributing the number of points you set (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 Evaluations: Students evaluate group members based on specific criteria 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 Evaluations: Students evaluate group members using a combination of short answer and rubric questions. This approach gives the highest degree of customization and therefore is suitable to evaluations that require more nuance and open response.
3. For a simple evaluation:
   • Click the Simple Evaluations tab, and 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).
   • Click Save.
4. For a rubrics evaluation:
   • Click the Rubrics tab, and 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 comments text (any notes about how students should assess each criterion), and criteria weight (how much weight each criterion will receive).
   • Click Save.
5. For mixed evaluations:
   • Click the Mixed Evaluations tab, and click Add Mixed Evaluations.
   • Fill in the name and availability settings.
   • Select a question type, and click Add to add fields for that question. Add as many question types as you would like and fill in the fields for each one.
   • When you are finished, click Save.
6. You are finished setting up the criteria and can now create an 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.

1. Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
2. Click the course title, and within the Evaluation Events box, click Add Event.
3. Add the title and description.
4. Set the evaluation type you will use as the template type:
   • Simple Evaluations: Students evaluate group members by distributing the number of points you set (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 Evaluations: Students evaluate group members based on specific criteria 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 Evaluations: Students evaluate group members using a combination of short answer and rubric questions. This approach gives the highest degree of customization and therefore is suitable to evaluations that require more nuance and open response.
5. In the drop-down menu underneath the type, select which specific evaluation you will use, either the one you created when you made your own criteria (see the section above for how to do this) or any of the existing ones from other courses and instructors.
   • Click Preview to see what any template will look like.
6. Fill out the rest of the form and click Submit.
7. 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.
8. Students will be able to fill out their evaluations during the dates you set.

Review and release iPeer evaluation outcomes

1. Log in to iPeer, and click Courses in the top navigation.
2. Click the course title, and within the Evaluation Events box, click List Evaluation Events.
3. For the evaluation you want to review, click Results under the "View" column.
4. On this overview page, you can see how many students have completed the evaluation, and if they submitted late or not. Click Results under the "View column" in this table to get a detailed look at outcomes.
5. Click Release All Comments or Release All Grades to manually share these results with students. In either case, students will receive their group's comments or grades anonymously, so they will not know who provided what feedback.
6. 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.

Send iPeer grades to your Canvas course

If you would like to use the evaluation outcomes as grades, you can send them to Canvas by either syncing iPeer grades directly with Canvas (best for situations requiring less customization) or exporting data from iPeer to upload manually to Canvas (best for situations requiring more customization).