Student Peer Assessments

Find tools to help you incorporate student peer assessments at UBC. These tools are categorized by those that let students review one another’s work and those that let students review one another’s performance in a group. All tools recommended by the LT Hub receive central technical and pedagogical support.

Assessing Work with Student Peer Assessments

UBC centrally supports four student peer assessment tools that can facilitate assignments where students review, rate, and/or leave formative feedback on each other’s work.

General Tips


Compare the tools

Compare the main features among the four centrally-supported student peer assessment tools for students assessing peer work at UBC.

Criteria  Canvas CLAS ComPAIR peerScholar
What are the strengths?
  • Generally straightforward and quick to set up
  • Part of Canvas
  • Option to manually assign what work each peer will review
  • Peers interactively review multimedia
  • Feedback can include contextual comments and annotations
  • Option to give feedback using audio or video in addition to text
  • Peers see work in pairs and can use comparative judgement in reviewing
  • Option to pair work adaptively, so pairs are selected based on similar quality
  • At the end, students can see all peer work
  • High flexibility in how peer reviews can be set up and factored into grades
  • Option to have students review the peer feedback they receive or resubmit work
  • Students can get different "cases" (instructions), then review only the same or only different cases
What are the limitations?
  • Limited follow-up activities
  • No grades automatically sent to the Canvas Gradebook; grades must be added manually
  • Students always know whose work they are reviewing
  • Not built specifically for peer review, so extra instructions are needed
  • No grades automatically sent to the Canvas Gradebook; grades must be added manually
  • Students cannot annotate work directly
  • Students must answer criteria by picking which peer work in the pair better meets each criterion
  • High flexibility in peerScholar means it can take longer to set up
  • Including all the peer review options for assignments means students need more time to finish

Canvas CLAS ComPAIR peerScholar
Work done by peers? Yes Yes Yes Yes
Their own work? No Yes Yes Yes
Feedback from peers? No No No Yes
In what format(s) can students submit work for review? Text,
images,
video,
audio,
equations,
PDFs
Images,
video,
audio,
PDFs
Text,
images,
video,
audio,
equations,
PDFs
Text,
images,
video,
audio,
PDFs,
programming code

Canvas CLAS ComPAIR peerScholar
Who can submit work for review? Individuals,
groups
Individuals Individuals,
groups
Individuals,
groups
In what ways can students provide feedback? Comment box,
annotations (on PDF, Word doc, PowerPoint, or image),
instructor-set rubrics (multiple-choice questions)
Comment box (may include video or audio),
annotations (on video, audio, image, or PDF)
Comment box,
instructor-set rubrics (questions for choosing between answer pairs)
Comment box,
annotations (only on text),
instructor-set rubrics (question types include: multiple choice, slider, matrix, dropdown, checkbox, scale, points),
file attachment
How can students be assigned reviews? Randomly or manually assigned Not assigned
(students must be instructed which work to review)
Randomly assigned Randomly assigned
Do student assessments result in a numeric value calculated by the tool? Yes No Yes Yes
Can students review without knowing who they review? Yes
(feedback must also be anonymous)
No Yes Yes
Can students receive feedback without knowing who it is from? Yes
(reviewing must also be anonymous)
Yes Yes Yes

Canvas CLAS ComPAIR peerScholar
Can a grade be generated, without any extra steps from the instructor? No
(grades must be entered manually)
No
(grades must be entered manually)
Yes
(participation-based)
Yes
(rubric-based and/or
participation-based)
Can grades be passed from the tool to the Canvas Gradebook? No No Yes
(once configured, participation grades will be passed)
Yes
(manually initiate syncing by clicking a button in peerScholar)


Read about the tools

canvas-logo Canvas

 

Cost:
Free

Bandwidth:
Low demand

Privacy:
Verified by UBC’s Privacy Impact Assessment process.

Canvas Peer Review

Facilitate simple student peer assessments in Canvas.

What are the benefits?

  • Canvas Peer Review applies a streamlined use of peer review that can be relatively quick to set up.
  • If you’re already using Canvas, these assignments will happen in a familiar interface for you and your students.
  • You can manually assign what work each peer will review.

Get started »


 

Cost:
Free

Bandwidth:
High demand

Privacy:
Verified by UBC’s Privacy Impact Assessment process.

Collaborative Learning Annotation System (CLAS)

Add granular peer review to multimedia like videos and images.

What are the benefits?

  • CLAS allows peers to interactively review multimedia like images, videos, and PDFs.
  • You can have students discuss multimedia using contextual comments and annotations and review the work yourself using the same tools.
  • Feedback can be given using audio or video in addition to text.

Get started »


compair-logo

 

Cost:
Free

Bandwidth:
Low demand

Privacy:
ComPAIR is developed and maintained at UBC.

ComPAIR

Have students compare and comment on peer work presented in pairs.

What are the benefits?

  • Looking at pairs of work helps students identify strengths and weaknesses of each individual work, using their innate skill of comparative judgement.
  • You can have the tool work adaptively, so pairs are selected based on similar quality.
  • At the end, students can see all peer work for broader comparison.

Get started »


peerScholar logo peerScholar

 

Cost:
Free

Bandwidth:
Low demand

Privacy:
Verified by UBC’s Privacy Impact Assessment process.

peerScholar

Ask students to review work and review the feedback they receive using highly flexible rubrics.

What are the benefits?

  • The customizations allow you to set the questions and format of the student responses, as well as how final grades are calculated.
  • You can include additional learning opportunities by having students review the peer feedback they receive or submit a revision of their work.
  • Students can be given different “cases” (instructions), then review only cases the same as or different from their own.

Get started »

Assessing Teamwork with Student Peer Assessments

UBC centrally supports two student peer assessment tools that invite students to evaluate each other’s contributions to group work and teamwork.

General Tips

  • In planning your assignments, consult the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology’s student peer assessment resources for instructors and students or book a one-on-one consultation for additional guidance.
  • Using student peer assessments formatively can help students understand how their contributions are perceived early on and make changes, if needed, before final summative assessments.
  • The student reviews can guide you in assigning fairer individual grades for group projects or other collaborations, as well as promote accountability for the students while working in their groups.

Compare the tools

Compare the main features between the two centrally-supported student peer assessment tools for students assessing teamwork at UBC.

Criteria  iPeer peerScholar
What are the strengths?
  • Set custom rubrics for review or have each student divvy up a set number of points
  • Tighter integration with Canvas, so reviews can be set up in one session
  • Works with Canvas group sets
  • Higher flexibility in how peer reviews can be set up
  • Grades can include participation as well as peer review outcomes
  • Peer review outcomes can be calculated multiple ways
What are the limitations?
  • Workflow and interface may have a higher learning curve
  • Fewer options for how reviews can be set up
  • Does not work with Canvas group sets
  • Students must register in peerScholar before you can set up reviews

iPeer peerScholar
Teamwork skills of peers? Yes Yes
Their own teamwork skills? Yes Yes

iPeer peerScholar
In what ways can students provide feedback? Comment box,
instructor-set rubrics (multiple-choice questions),
point distribution
Comment box,
instructor-set rubrics (question types include: multiple choice, slider, matrix, dropdown, checkbox, scale, points)
Do student assessments result in a numeric value calculated by the tool? Yes Yes
Can students receive feedback without knowing who it is from? Yes Yes
Can students receive feedback knowing who it is from? No Yes

iPeer peerScholar
Can a grade be generated, without any extra steps from the instructor? Yes
(rubric-based)
Yes
(rubric-based and/or
participation-based)
Can grades be passed from the tool to the Canvas gradebook? Yes
(manually initiate syncing by clicking a button in iPeer)
Yes
(manually initiate syncing by clicking a button in peerScholar)


Read about the tools

ipeer-logo iPeer

 

Cost:
Free

Bandwidth:
Low demand

Privacy:
iPeer is developed and maintained at UBC.

iPeer

Create rubrics that students use to anonymously review their group members in this UBC-developed tool for evaluating teamwork.

What are the benefits?

  • You can set custom rubrics for students to use in review, or have each student divvy up a set number of points.
  • Assessments can be coordinated with any groups you’ve already set up in Canvas.

Get started »


peerScholar logo peerScholar

 

Cost:
Free

Bandwidth:
Low demand

Privacy:
Verified by UBC’s Privacy Impact Assessment process.

peerScholar

Create custom rubrics that students use to anonymously review their group members using a feature in this tool that can also facilitate assessments of work.

What are the benefits?

  • You can set up peer reviews with a high degree of flexibility.
  • Peer review outcomes and final grades can be calculated multiple ways.

Get started »