How to Review Peer Submissions: A Step by Step Guide

Reviewing a Submission: What does that mean?

In Peerceptiv, reviewing a submission involves using a rubric to rate the quality of the work and provide comments letting your peer know what they did well and how they can improve. The review process has been shown to improve learners' critical analysis and the quality of their finished work. In other words, thinking critically about your peers' work will help you recognize ways to make your own work better.

Peerceptiv rubrics consist of comment prompts and rating prompts. Comment Prompts ask you to provide qualitative, written comments on peer submissions. Your peers will evaluate the helpfulness of your comments. Rating Prompts ask you to select the level and description that best describes how that aspect of the submission performs according to the rubric. Click here for information about how to be a better reviewer.

For every assignment, you have a certain required number of reviews to complete by the end of the reviewing deadline. In order for you to receive credit for the review, you must respond to ALL of the comment and rating prompts before pressing Submit.

The  accuracy and helpfulness of your reviews affect your reviewing grade and task grade. Students with the highest reviewing grade complete all reviewing tasks, allow themselves plenty of time to complete the reviews, provide constructive feedback with specific suggestions for improvement, and rate according to the rubric. 

Step-by-Step Reviewing Guide

1. In a Sync Mode course, the reviewing period opens as soon as the submission deadline passes. In an Async Mode course, you can begin reviewing as soon as you have submitted and there are other submissions available for review.

Users accessing Peerceptiv through a course website (Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, etc.) should click on the assignment link in their course website. You will be taken directly to the assignment.

Users accessing Peerceptiv through the Peerceptiv website should log into Peerceptiv and click on the course. Click on the assignment which says "Start a Review" on the right. The deadline for each phase is listed below the icon to help you track what you can do in each assignment.

2. The next screen is the Assignment Dashboard. This screen reminds you of the deadlines for each phase of the assignment. Click Open to read the assignment description. Click Rubric to read the assignment rubric.

To begin reviewing, click Start a Review. This button will be blue during the review period, showing you where you are in the process.

3. View the submission on the left. Read the comment prompt and type your response in the box below. Remember that your comments should address the prompt and be as specific and constructive as possible to provide the most helpful feedback. For more reviewing advice, read Be a Helpful Reviewer

If you would like to pin your comment to a specific location in the document or video that you're reviewing, click the pin icon in the bottom right corner of the comment box. If there is no pin icon available, then the pin feature is not enabled for that submission, but you can still leave a comment normally by typing in the box.

Hover over the document in the viewing window and scroll to the place you want to pin your comment and then click on the document to choose your pin location. If it is a video submission, click on the bar to pin your comment to a timestamp location. You'll see an orange circle with a location number or timestamp number appear in the file and on your comment box. 

4. You will also see rating prompts in which you will rate the submission according to the levels provided. Click anywhere in the appropriate description level that best describes how that aspect of the document performs according to the rubric. The rating box will turn blue when it is selected. Then, click Next.

It’s important to remember that the ratings you choose do not directly translate to grades. Choosing the highest rating does not correspond to a grade of 100% and a rating of 1 does not correspond to a failing grade. All ratings are weighted by the reviewer’s accuracy and normed according to settings your instructor selects.

You are being graded on the overall accuracy of your response, with a higher grade awarded if the order of your ratings corresponds to the order of mean peer ratings for all the submissions you reviewed. Read this article for more on how to understand your review grade.

Please note that you will receive a poor reviewing grade if you assign the same rating to all of the rating prompts for all of the submissions that you review. This is intended to encourage reviewers to think deeply about each submission, not simply choose the same score for all of them.

5. Move through the rest of the reviewing screens, writing a comment or selecting a rating for each prompt.
6. When you have completed a review, you will be taken back to the assignment dashboard. You are then able to edit a review or start another review. 

Final Reviewing Reminders

In some assignments you may have the option of performing bonus reviews, for which you will be awarded a bonus grade as part of your task grade. Each bonus review that you complete earns you 15 percentage points added to your task grade. The accuracy and helpfulness of your bonus review will factor into your overall reviewing grade for the assignment. When bonus reviews are allowed, you can perform as many bonus reviews as the number of required reviews. If you request a bonus review but do not complete it, your task grade will be lowered. 

Please read the article “Be a Helpful Reviewer” for more tips about how to participate in the peer review process.

If your assignment has a feedback stage, the article "Provide Feedback" walks through the third stage of a peer assessment assignment.