Peer review – teacher's guide

1 What peer review is

In peer review, students assess each other’s work. The teacher creates the assignment, students submit their work and then review the work assigned to them – based on a rubric if you wish. The teacher follows the process and releases the feedback.

A peer review assignment is created in a course topic: edit the course → Topics → the topic’s 🤝 Peer review card → “+ Add peer review”. Created assignments are managed in the Add tools → Peer Reviews view (section 6).

Create the assignment→ Publish→ Students submit→ Assign reviewers→ Close and release

Note: save the course first so you can add peer reviews to a topic.

2 Creating the assignment and basic settings

The form is divided into the sections Basic settings, Content, Rubric and Advanced. Start with the basic details and the deadlines.

Basic settings and content: title, grading, max points, reviewers per submission, submission and review deadlines, task instructions and reviewer instructions.

Title – required.
Grading – Points (default) or Approved / rejected. An approved-or-rejected assignment has no points: max points are hidden, and the teacher always grades the original work (the setting Teacher grades the original work too is locked on). The result is Approved, Needs revision or Rejected (section 8), and the assignment adds no points. Peer reviewers give their feedback as in a points assignment.
Max points (overall) – the maximum points for the whole assignment (points assignments only).
Reviewers per submission – how many reviews each piece of work gets (2–3 recommended; you need at least this many students + 1).
Submission deadline and Review deadline – separate deadlines for submitting the work and for reviewing.
Task instructions – instructions for the author. The formatting bar has bold, italic, underline, lists and a heading.
Reviewer instructions – separate instructions on what to focus on in the review.

3 Rubric

A rubric is an assessment table where you define the criteria (e.g. “Reasoning”) and their maximum points. The rubric is optional – if you leave it empty, students give free-form feedback only.

The rubric: three criteria, each with a title, a description and max points. “+ Add criterion” adds a row, “Remove” removes one.

Each criterion has a title, an optional description and max points.
Students score the work criterion by criterion.
An empty rubric = free-form written feedback only.

4 Advanced settings

With the advanced settings you control anonymity, how reviewers are assigned and the rules of the process. The ? next to a field gives a short explanation.

Advanced: anonymity, assignment mode, max versions and the process rules; Cancel and Save at the bottom.

Anonymity – Anonymous (students see only e.g. “Anonymous #3”) or Named. The teacher always sees the real students.
Assignment mode – Random (drawn; nobody reviews their own work) or Manual (you choose the pairs yourself).
Max versions before submit – how many versions a student can submit (0 = unlimited).
Allow editing after peer review – the student can improve the work after receiving feedback.
Teacher grades the original work too – you grade the work yourself (section 8); peer reviews are suggestions. Always on in an approved-or-rejected assignment.
Teacher comments reviews before release – the reviews are not released until you press “Close and release”; you can check their quality first.
Allow inline text annotations – the reviewer can select a passage of the text and leave a comment on it.
🔒 Lock submissions after deadline – prevents late submissions.

Save saves the assignment (at first as a draft), Cancel closes the form without saving.

5 Publishing and assigning reviewers

A saved assignment appears in the Peer Reviews view marked Not published yet. The 📤 Publish button makes it available to students, who can then submit their work. When submissions have come in, you assign the reviewers.

Save→ Publish→ Students submit→ Assign reviewers→ Students review

🎲 Assign reviewers – distributes the work to reviewers (randomly or manually) and moves the assignment to Reviewing. A new draw wipes the previous assignments.

Publish the assignment before assigning reviewers – an unpublished assignment cannot be assigned. Random assignment makes sure nobody reviews their own work.

6 Management and follow-up

The Peer Reviews view (in the Add tools menu) collects the peer review assignments of all courses and their progress.

The Peer Reviews view: course, topic, assignment, status, submissions, reviews (done / total), deadlines and the actions available for each status.

Statuses – Open (submission phase) · Reviewing (review phase) · Closed. An unpublished assignment has Not published yet under its name.
Submissions / Reviews – the number of submissions and reviews done / reviews assigned.
Deadlines – 📤 submission and 🔍 review.
Actions – Edit, Publish, Assign reviewers, View, Stats, Close and release, Reopen, Delete (shown according to the status).
Filters – course and All / Open / Reviewing / Closed. Sync fetches new submissions and reviews.

7 Close and release

Peer reviews are not shown to students until you close the assignment. You can first check and, if you wish, comment on the reviews, and then release them all at once.

🔎 View – opens the submissions and the peer reviews made on them (including annotations). In this view you can comment on the reviews to ensure their quality.
📊 Stats – a summary of the assignment’s progress and the reviews.
✓ Close and release – closes the assignment and releases the feedback to students at once (you are asked to confirm).
↻ Reopen – returns a closed assignment to the review phase.
Teacher grading – if you chose “Teacher grades the original work too”, you grade the work in the review view (section 8). The peer reviews act as suggestions.

In anonymous mode students see reviewers as “Anonymous #3”, but you always see the real students.

8 Teacher grading: points or approved / rejected

When the teacher grades the original work, choose 🔎 View in the Peer reviews view and pick the work from the submissions list. The peer reviews with their rubric scores are next to the work, and below them is the section 🎓 Teacher's own evaluation.

Points assignment

Give points (up to the assignment's max points), optionally a grade, and feedback to the student.
✓ Approve saves the evaluation and approves the work.
↩ Return for revision opens a choice: return it to the author (a new version of the work), to the peer reviewers (redo the review) or to both. Write the return reason and press the button again. A reason or feedback is required.

Approved-or-rejected assignment

There are no points fields. Write feedback and choose the result:

✓ Approved – the work is done. Feedback is optional.
↩ Needs revision – the work is returned for revision with the same target choice as in a points assignment; a reason or feedback is required. In the submissions list the work shows as needs revision.
✕ Rejected – a final result: the student cannot resubmit the work. Rejecting requires feedback (without it the app asks: “Write feedback before rejecting the work.”), and the app asks you to confirm.

The top of the section shows the Current result and its time. You can change the result later, even a rejection. In the submissions list each piece of work shows its status (submitted, approved, needs revision, rejected), and 📊 Stats counts the approved, needs-revision and rejected work. The stats of an approved-or-rejected assignment have no points section.

An approved-or-rejected assignment adds no course points. Choose the grading method when you create the assignment.

🧩 See also: Topics →