Group Peer Assessment with Team Member Evaluation

This article discusses how to create a Peerceptiv group submission peer assessment assignment with an attached team member (peer) evaluation component. Read this article for information about a stand-alone team member evaluation assignment. Read this article for information about a stand-alone group peer assessment assignment. 

This article covers:

What is a group peer assessment with team member evaluation?

How to set up a group peer assessment with a team member evaluation component

How to create rubrics

How to create groups

Progress and Results

What is a group peer assessment with team member evaluation?

In Peerceptiv, you can create a group peer assessment assignment in which student groups submit work products and then rate and review each other's work. Each group submits one project per group and then each member of the group reviews other groups' submissions. Peerceptiv is able to generate a grade based on the quality of the work and student participation in the reviewing process. If you are setting up a group peer assessment, then you also have the option to add a team member evaluation component. 

Team member evaluation allows learners to anonymously rate and comment on the contributions of their group members, and allows learners to rate and comment on their own contributions to the group as well. Group members will rate each other's professionalism, communication, content knowledge and skills, work ethic, and overall contribution. Peerceptiv is able to generate a grade based on the quality of participation in the group or completion of the evaluation process.

If you choose to set up an assignment with these components combined (peer assessment and team member evaluation), then the overall grade that is generated will incorporate a grade for the quality of the submission, a grade for the quality of the reviewing behavior, a grade for completion of all assignment tasks, and a grade for the team member evaluation component. These four grades will be combined into one overall grade. If you would like students to receive separate grades for the peer assessment and the team member evaluation, then we would recommend setting up two separate assignments - one for the peer assessment and one for the team member evaluation. 

How to set up a group peer assessment with team member evaluation

Note: If you are using Peerceptiv in an LMS, please always start by creating an assignment link in your LMS first, and then use that link to access Peerceptiv.

1. Select New Assignment and then Build a Custom Assignment.

2. Assignment Type: Choose Peer Assessment. A peer assessment assignment allows students to submit a work product and rate and review their peers' work. If you are interested in Team Member Evaluation Only, in which students only evaluate group participation (and do not assess a submission), please see the Team Member Evaluation directions.

3. Submission: choose Student Groups. When you do that, you will have the option to add a peer evaluation stage to your group submission assignment. Adding this stage to your assignment will incorporate it into the overall grade for the assignment. If you would like the grades to be separate, we recommend creating two different assignments: one for group submission and one for team member (peer) evaluation.

4. Late Submissions: Keep the default Allow Late Submissions unless you have a specific reason for not keeping it. If you do not allow late submissions here, students will not be able to submit late even if they have an excused reason for their late submission. If late submissions are not allowed according to your syllabus or course policies, you may want to set a penalty of 100% but still keep this setting to account for any cases of excused late submissions. None of the other stages (review, feedback, team member evaluation) allow for late work.

5. Feedback: It is your choice whether or not to include a Feedback phase. Including it will require students to rate all comments for helpfulness and respond to each comment. This step holds students accountable for quality reviewing, but it can be removed if there are time constraints or concerns about excess work for students. 

Do NOT include a feedback stage if the rubric will only have rating prompts. It is fine to include a feedback stage if the rubric has only commenting prompts or a mix of commenting and rating prompts.

Note: The feedback stage cannot be added or removed by the instructor after the assignment has been created. If you realize that the feedback phase needs to be added or removed, please contact Peerceptiv Support for assistance.

6. Confirm and Continue: If the assignment is set up the way you want it to be set, click Submit. Click Previous to go back to an earlier setting option and make changes. Please note that the settings you select in the first four steps cannot be edited later. If you realize that something needs to be changed after the assignment has been created, please contact [e-mail] about the issue.

7. Details: Add an assignment name and description. If you have a detailed description posted elsewhere, you can simply refer students to that description or post the full description in both places. Click Next to move to the submission type screen.

8. Submission Types: If all of the default submission types are allowed, students can choose to either upload a file, post a link, or directly type their submission into Peerceptiv (they must choose only one of these methods). To remove a submission type, click on that type and it will not be allowed, as shown by a red X instead of a green check.

Submission notes:

• If students post a link, please remind them to make sure that any sharing or privacy settings are set to allow peer reviewers access.
• Only one submission can be uploaded per group per assignment. If students need to upload multiple files, have them create a Zip file and upload that folder.
• We recommend selecting "Link" for all video submission assignments. Students must upload a link to their video on YouTube, Google Drive, Vimeo, or another video hosting service. 

9. Review: Select the number of reviews each student will complete. We recommend requiring each student to complete 2 reviews in a group assignment. This lessens the reviewing burden for students and still allows for valid and reliable grades in a group assignment. 

10. Advanced Reviewing Options: 

• Allow extra, bonus reviews allows students to complete additional reviews beyond the required ones for extra credit. Each additional review completed will count as 10% added to the task grade. Students can only complete the same number of bonus reviews as required reviews. For example, if there are 3 required reviews, a student could complete up to 3 additional bonus reviews for a total of 3 percentage points. Bonus reviews that are started and not completed are counted against the student’s reviewing task grade. If bonus reviews are enabled, students may get above a 100% for their task grade.
• Allow students who haven't submitted to peer review permits students to review peer documents without having submitted their own. They are not allowed to submit after they begin the reviewing process. This option must be checked in situations where not everyone who reviews has to submit, like in presentation assignments when only a portion of the students submit on a given day and then the rest review those submissions without submitting their own work to that assignment. Students who do not submit will get a 0 for their submission grade and will not be able to participate in the feedback phase, but they will get a grade for the reviews that they complete.
• Require students to perform a self-review will require students to use the rubric to assess their own submission. Their ratings will not be counted toward the overall grade.

11. Feedback: If the assignment has a Feedback stage, you can choose to accept the default prompt and ratings or edit them to have students focus on the specific criteria that the reviewers should include. It is not possible to remove the feedback stage once it is part of the assignment without contacting Peerceptiv support.

12. Evaluation Options:

• Require students to evaluate the group as a whole - select this if you want students to evaluate the group as a whole.
• Require students to evaluate the group leader - select this if you want students to evaluate the group leader using a different rubric than they one they will use to evaluate all the other group members. 
• Require students to evaluate the instructors - All instructors listed on the course roster will be included; you may need to remove course instructional designers if selecting this option.
• Require students perform a self evaluation - select this if you want students to evaluate themselves using the rubric for their peers. Their scores will not count toward their grade.
• Use peer evaluation ratings for grades - select this if you want the students’ overall grades to be calculated based on their average rating score. If you leave this unchecked, the students’ overall grade will be based on participation only, meaning that students will get a 100% if they complete their peer evaluations. 

13. Grading Options

• Grading Style
  • Curved Grading uses the mean and standard deviation set by the instructor to generate the submission grade.
  • Benchmarking allows instructors to set the grading curve based on the highest and lowest ranked submissions. After the reviewing period is over, the instructor will grade 10 submissions. The grades given to those 10 submissions set a linear curve that is used to generate the submission grades for all submissions.

• Instructor Review Impact
  • • Regular Review means that any instructor or TA reviews completed will count the same as a student review in terms of determining the submission grade. For example, if there are 3 student reviews and 1 instructor review, each review will count approximately 25% towards the student’s submission grade. Instructor reviews are considered to be 100% accurate and affects the accuracy reviewing grade of reviewers in addition to the submission grade of the student whose work the instructor reviewed.
    • Override Student Reviews means that the instructor or TA ratings are the only ratings that will be used to determine the student’s submission grades. If there is no instructor review on a document, then the student ratings will determine the grade. Instructor reviews are considered to be 100% accurate and affects the accuracy reviewing grade of reviewers even though the student reviewers' ratings do not count toward the submitter's grade.

• Grade Release
  • • Automatic grade release will publish the results immediately after the final assignment deadline passes. If the course is linked to the LMS, the overall assignment grade will be sent to the LMS grade book. Students will also be able to see their grade and the reviews on their document after grades are released.
    • Manual grade release means that an instructor or TA must release the results to students, giving the instructor a chance to review and approve the grades before the students see them. Students will not be able to see their grades, their average ratings, or the comments on their submission until the results are released.

• Late Penalty

If you used a Peerceptiv workflow or set the options to allow late submissions and late penalties, then you can set the late penalty here. The default is for the late penalty to be 10 but you can change it on this screen. The penalty is deducted from the submission grade after it is calculated. If the submission is uploaded more than one minute after the deadline, it is considered to be one day late. You can waive the penalty for individuals after the assignment is over.

Grade Weight

Set the amount each grading category will count towards the overall percentage grade. The default 40% submission grade, 40% reviewing grade, and 20% task grade has been shown to generate overall grades that are as valid and reliable as instructor grades. The evaluation grade counts for 0% as the default - if you would like students to receive a grade for their peer evaluations (either based on participation or mean peer ratings, according to whether you checked the box to use team member evaluation ratings for grades), then you must put some weight on that grade here. The grade for team member evaluation will be incorporated into their overall grade for the assignment based on the weight you set. If you prefer to have a separate grade for team member evaluation, it is better to set up a separate team member (peer) eval only assignment. 

Adjust the numerical percentage amounts on the right with the arrows or type in the desired percentages. The total must be 100.

14. Deadlines: 

Set the publication date (when students will be able to view the assignment), the deadline time, submission, reviewing, feedback and evaluation deadlines. To edit these dates,  click on the calendar, the end date, or the duration. 

The publication date will automatically be set for tomorrow's date, but this can be changed once the assignment has been created. Set your publication date so that students cannot see it until you want them to see the assignment.

The deadline time is the time when each phase will end on the day set. This time is the same for all phases to reduce confusion.

Peerceptiv recommends allowing at least 2 days for each phase, with a longer reviewing phase for assignments that will take students a significant amount of time to complete the required reviews in a thoughtful manner.

15. Advanced Settings

• Convert document submissions to PDF is recommended for optimal reviewing experience. However, if the file submission is a spreadsheet, PowerPoint with audio files, zip file, video file, or other file format that does not convert to PDF, please uncheck this box.

• Send email notifications will remind students when a phase has begun, when there is 24 hours before a deadline and the student has not completed a task, and when the grades are released. Even if the notifications are not emailed, students will be able to see them if they click on the bell icon at the top right of the Peerceptiv assignment dashboard.

If not all students are completing every assignment phase or if students are not completing all of the assignments set up in Peerceptiv, we recommend that you uncheck this setting.

16. Click Finish to finalize the settings and open the assignment in your course.

How to Create Rubrics

After creating your group peer assessment with team member (peer) evaluation, you will need to add and edit the rubrics. Click on the rubric tab on the left side bar or click Create Rubric on the dashboard.

Submission Rubric

The Submission Rubric will be used by the students to rate and comment on their peers’ submissions for the peer assessment. Please see this article on Building Rubrics for more information about how to add a submission rubric.

Group Member Evaluation Rubric

The Group Member Evaluation Rubric will be used by the students to rate and comment on the quality of participation in the group for each member. 

All team member evaluation assignments have a default “group member” rubric which will be assigned to students to evaluate their individual group members or the peers who they select to evaluate, if that option was chosen in the assignment settings. This rubric will also be used for self-evaluation.

You are able to edit or delete portions of this rubric by clicking on the Edit pencil for each prompt. You are able to add additional prompts by clicking the large plus sign in the corner of the screen. Comment prompts ask students to leave comments about their peers and rating prompts ask students to rate their peers on a numerical scale. Reorder the rubric by clicking and dragging the prompt or using the up and down arrows.

If you previously chose in the settings to have students evaluate the instructor, the group leader, or the group as a whole, you can set up rubric prompts for those rubrics. If you do not set up a rubric for each option, then those tasks will not be given to students.

As a general rule, Peerceptiv rubrics must have at least 3 rating prompts in order to generate valid and reliable grades. If you have set up this assignment to generate participation grades, then you can choose to only have comment prompts without affecting the grades.

How to Create Groups

You must have students in the course roster to create groups, unless you plan to have students create their own groups. After making sure that your course roster is populated with students, you can then proceed with group creation.

First, click on the Groups tab on the left side bar.

Options for Creating Groups:

1. Click New Group to create a group manually. Then, click the plus sign on that group and click Add Members to select students from the roster to put into the group. You can rename the group by clicking on the group name and changing it.

2. Upload Group List in the required format using a CSV spreadsheet (tip: convert your Excel spreadsheet to a CSV file to do this) or copy and paste from an Excel or other spreadsheet. 

3. Group Sync will allow you to directly import groups from the LMS.  This option will only appear if group sync has been set up by your institution's LMS administrator. Please contact [e-mail] if you want to add this option or believe it should be available.

After you click Group Sync the first time, you will need to give permission for Peerceptiv to access the LMS group information. Then select the set of groups in the LMS that you want to add in Peerceptiv. Note: If you are using group sync for multiple courses, please remember to go back to the LMS and open Peerceptiv from the LMS for each class before clicking Group Sync. Otherwise you risk pulling the wrong student groups into an assignment.

You can click Group Sync at any point to bring over the groups as they are currently set up in the LMS. If the groups have changed in the LMS, you should click Group Sync again to apply those changes in Peerceptiv. However, changing the groups during the review or evaluation phase of an assignment may result in students needing to complete additional assignment tasks.

4. Click the settings gear icon to select to Auto Generate Groups, Copy Groups from a Past Assignment, or Delete All Groups.

5. Click the toggle bar to turn off student group self management. If it is on (green checkmark), students are able to request to join a group and form groups on their own. If it is off (red X), students cannot create, leave, or edit the groups.

6. Click the Students tab and then click on a particular student’s name to add them to a group that has already been created. You can move students from one group to another and search for students who are not yet in groups.

Group Management Notes: 

• Unless you plan to have students manage their own groups, please make sure the groups are correct before the reviewing period begins.
• You can delete a group by clicking on the three dots to the right of the group name.
• You can move a student from one group to another at any time. However, if you move a student while the assignment is open (assignment tasks are available), it may change the number of tasks a student has to complete and whether that student will have received any reviews.

Progress and Results

View student progress through the assignment by clicking on the Progress tab on the left side navigation bar. You’ll see the student’s group number, submission time, reviews given and received, feedback given and received, and peer evaluations given and received. If the assignment is complete, you’ll see a grade in the right-most column. Click on any student’s name to view these tasks in detail for a particular student, including their submission, ratings, and comments given and received.

Click on the results tab on the left side navigation bar. In the assignment results controls, you can release grades, determine advanced visibility settings, and recalculate grades. Then you’ll see the assignment submission’s average rating scores by class and by individual, the evaluation average rating scores by class and by individual, and finally the grades breakdown. 

If you selected to use team member (peer) evaluation ratings for grades, the team member evaluation grade will be based on the average rating score received from the team member evaluations. If you did not select this option in the settings, then the team member (peer) evaluation grade will be based on completion of the evaluation process. The submission, review, task, and evaluation grades are combined to produce the overall grade according to the grading weights chosen in the settings.