create a peer review assignment on canvas

Canvas at Penn

Penn's Source for Courseware Innovation & News

Peer Review Assignment Best Practices for Instructors

Canvas has a built-in Peer Review tool that allows instructors to assign student submissions to each other for feedback. This feature can be enabled for groups and can be set up to be anonymous. 

If the built-in tool in Canvas doesn’t meet your needs, there may be other options . 

Before You Start

We strongly recommend working with your LSP if you want to create a peer review assignment in Canvas to create the best experience for you and your students.

• Consider providing clear instructions or a rubric in your assignment for students on what a peer review is in Canvas , how they will grade, and how they can view their feedback .
• We recommend reiterating to students that it is important that they submit on time so they don’t hold the assignment up for others in the course.
• Students who haven’t submitted an assignment can no longer be invited to review others’ work. If students don’t submit, they can’t participate. 

How to Create a Peer Review Assignment in Canvas

• If this will be a group assignment, you will see an additional option to “Allow intra-group peer reviews”. Select this if you would like Canvas to select a member of the same group for that student to review.

Note – Canvas assigns peer reviews to individuals, EVEN if it’s a Group Project assignment. The only project member who will see feedback is the one the peer reviewer was assigned to. It will not be visible to other project members.

• If you select assign reviews manually , instructors will need to go in and pair up the students after students have finished submitting their assignments.
• Instructors should provide a buffer for students to allow for late submissions and not use the same time as the due date of the assignment.
• Once all additional settings have been configured, save and publish the assignment.
• Students will receive an email and a to do list item once they have been assigned a peer to review. Students will not receive a peer to review until they submit the assignment.

Keep in Mind

• We recommend using the Manually Assign Peer Reviews option (see screenshot below) to assign peer reviews later if they need to be done at a specific time. 

• “ If a student has not submitted the assignment or submits the assignment after the due date, the student will not automatically be assigned a peer review and you must manually assign one. ”
• For assignments with Turnitin enabled, only the original student can see the originality score, not the assigned reviewer. Reviewers won’t be able to assess this information, since it isn’t visible to them.

Known Issues 

The manual drag and drop option to assign peer reviews has not been reliable . For the best experience, we recommend using the “assign peer reviews now” option for this need instead.

• Automatic (randomly assigned) peer reviews may take up to an hour to be assigned to students. We recommend letting your students know that there may be a delay before submissions are available to them to review.
• Clear your cache on a PC  
• Clear your cache on a Mac  

Please try the instructions linked above for your preferred browser and then open a new window and try logging in again. 

Clearing the browser cache can also sometimes solve issues students are having with peer reviews, and the above instructions may be helpful to share with them as well.

Other Peer Review Options

• Wharton instructors – contact the Wharton Courseware team ( [email protected] ) for a full list of your options for peer review assignments. 
• If you’re already using Perusall in your course, consider using Perusall’s peer review functions . 
• For group assignments: consider creating a Canvas discussion board or using Ed Discussion to allow students to share feedback with the entire group.

Please contact [email protected] or your Local Service Provider for assistance. 

Last Updated: 31 Oct 2023

Use Peer Review in Canvas to Build Your Learning Community

by Michael Hernandez | Sep 16, 2022 | Canvas , Canvas Features/Functions , How-tos

It can be challenging to effectively communicate expectations for student work and build a class community–whether in person or online–that promotes meaningful learning. However, Peer Review in Canvas can help you do both!

How Peer Review can Support Your Teaching

By using Peer Review, you can help students get feedback for revision(s) before they submit projects, and you can assess the work of your students as reviewers. Students can leave comments and write global feedback on work that’s been submitted for review by their classmates.

Additionally, if you’re currently using Canvas Rubrics to share your expectations and assess student work, Peer Review can support that work even further by allowing students to give feedback using the same clear expectations you set out in your rubric. Even if you’re new to the practice of grading with rubrics, this process may help you to flag any areas where assignment expectations are unclear to students or where additional instruction may be helpful. (If you’re interested in learning how Canvas Rubrics can help you share expectations and help students thrive in your course, see our previous blog post on rubrics.)

How to Configure Peer Review

To set up peer review in Canvas, go to Assignments within your Canvas course. You can either add the process to an existing assignment or create a new assignment. When you’re editing the assignment, scroll down to the section titled Peer Reviews . ( Important: make sure the submission type is set to “Online.” )

Once there, you’ll have two settings to configure:

• Manual assignment is useful if you have specific pairs in mind. You’ll have the option to choose as many classmates’ submissions to assign to each student as you like.
• Automatic assignment allows you to designate a specific number of submissions for each student to review and let Canvas do the rest. If this is a group assignment, you’ll need to specify whether students within the same group should be matched.
• Once you’ve saved your selection, this cannot be changed . You will have to make a new assignment if you change your mind.
• While students will not know each other’s names in the peer review process, instructors and TAs will have access to that information.
• Note that Canvas DocViewer (Canvas’ built-in tool for document annotation) does not work for anonymous peer review. For more information on DocViewer, check out Canvas’ video overview .

Associating Rubrics with your Peer Review Assignment

If you choose to associate a rubric with the assignment, students will be able to submit their review by filling out the rubric. If you’d like to add a rubric, the process is as follows:

• Open your assignment page.

• If you’d like to create a new rubric, you can fill in your criteria, rating levels, and other rubric settings there.
• A menu allowing you to sort by course and preview individual rubrics will appear.
• When you’ve found the one you want, select it, scroll down in the preview, and click Use this Rubric .

A couple of notes to keep in mind:

• Whether you choose to use a rubric or not, students are required to submit their own work before they leave feedback for another student.
• Grades assigned by peer reviewers using your rubric do not go into your gradebook. Instructors still assign grades manually.

For further technical guidance on setting up and administering the peer review process in your class, check out this guide from Canvas . If your students require guidance on how to complete peer review, you can refer them to the student guide or video from Canvas. You can also contact ATS for an individual consultation or visit our office hours .

Upcoming Workshops

If you’re looking for additional support using Peer Review in Canvas, please consider signing up for our Canvas Peer Review workshop . Visit the Academic Technology Solutions Workshop Schedule to see a calendar view of all current workshops.You can also consult with ATS or drop by our Office Hours .

Image credit: StockSnap from Pixabay

Recent Posts

• Link to Library Resources in Canvas
• Create Positive Classroom Relationships with NameCoach
• Assess the Big Picture for Your Class Using Canvas Outcomes
• Schedule Page Publication in Canvas
• Support Your Pedagogy with Anonymous Canvas Discussions

Monthly Archives

• February 2023
• January 2023
• December 2022
• November 2022
• September 2022
• August 2022
• February 2022
• October 2021
• February 2021
• January 2021
• December 2020
• November 2020
• October 2020
• September 2020
• August 2020
• February 2020
• January 2020
• December 2019
• November 2019
• October 2019
• September 2019
• February 2019
• January 2019
• December 2018
• November 2018
• October 2018
• September 2018
• August 2018
• February 2018
• January 2018
• December 2017
• September 2017
• August 2016
• October 2014
• September 2014
• Canvas Features/Functions
• Symposium for Teaching with Technology
• Teach Smart with Technology
• Uncategorized

Jump to navigation

Digital Learning Educational Innovation Across Northwestern

Search form, create peer review assignments in canvas.

Peer Review Assignments have multiple advantages

Error message

Assigning students to review each other’s work has many advantages, both for the student completing the review and the one receiving the feedback.  The student who reviews their classmate’s work benefits from learning new content and observing the quality of the work of their peers and thus improving their own work.  They gain experience providing thoughtful, critical feedback.

The student receiving the feedback begins to see a wider audience for their work than just the instructor.  They also gain comfort around receiving feedback from a peer (that’s a beneficial life-skill in and out of the classroom).  Peer reviews can help the instructor as well, they can speed up the grading process and help provide another point of view.

Canvas makes distributing students’ work to peers and gathering feedback easy, but it’s necessary to provide the tools the students will need.  Tips for creating successful peer review assignments include:

• Clear requirements – obviously you’ll want to let the students know the specifics of the assignment and exactly what’s expected of them.
• A rubric – this is helpful to the student completing the assignment, as well as later on, when they review their classmate’s work.
• Knowledge of the type of feedback they’re expected to provide.  Be clear with your students about what you want them to address, and how.  Give them the tools they need to provide constructive criticism.
• A timeline – timeliness is important in the peer review process.  If an assignment isn’t turned in on time, it risks being left out of the peer-review process.

Creating a Peer Review Assignment in Canvas

To create a peer review assignment, go to your course and start to create an assignment as you normally would.  On the Assignment page, you’ll see an area for “Peer Reviews” and a box next to “Require Peer Reviews”.  Checking that box will expand the options.

Peer Review Options

Select whether you want to manually assign the submissions or allow the system to assign them automatically.  Unless there’s a specific reason you really want to control this, save yourself some time and let the system do it for you.  Select how many reviews each user (AKA: student) should complete.

Enter a date on which the reviews will be distributed under “Assign Reviews”.  Obviously, this date must be after the initial due date, when the assignment itself is due. TIP: If you have the luxury of time, leave a grace period here to allow for late papers .

As instructor, you have the ability to choose if the reviews appear anonymously.  If you select to have the reviews appear anonymously, the students will not see the names of the person they are providing feedback for, nor will they see the name of the person who has provided the feedback.  The instructor, naturally, maintains omniscient power over all content in their course.

Students will find the submissions they are to review on the Canvas page for the assignment.  Feedback is immediate.  As soon as the complete their review, the original student will see the feedback on their “Grades” page in Canvas.

More information on creating peer review assignments in Canvas .

Online Writing Instruction

How to Set Up Peer Review in Canvas

• by Kory Lawson Ching
• April 10, 2020

This helpful tutorial was developed by Sylvia Morales ( [email protected] ), a Continuing Lecturer in the University Writing Program. 

Set-Up the Assignment that will receive the peer review

Step 1: Set up an assignment that will receive the peer review.

• Click on “require peer reviews”

• Only if you choose “automatically assign peer reviews” will you see the date box. “Assign Peer Reviews” is the date Canvas will automatically assign each student a review. 
• You could leave it blank, which means Canvas will assign the reviews immediately after the assignment due date. Assignment due at 10 am, reviews assigned at 10:01 am
• Or you could put a date/time an hour past the assignment due date. Assignment due at 10 am, reviews assigned at 11 am. Doing this will ensure that people who submitted their assignments late will still get a peer review assigned.

Step 2: Once peer reviews are assigned, you will see the “peer review” menu item on the right.

Step 3: Click on the above “Peer Reviews” link will allow you to see who has been assigned which paper to review and whether they’ve completed it. 

• You can always add or delete the automatically assigned reviews.
• You can also add one for someone who did not originally receive one (because they turned in their assignment after the reviews were assigned automatically by Canvas)

Set-Up a Separate Peer Review Assignment

I create a separate peer review assignment in my grade book for two reasons:

• I assign points for peer review
• I can put the assignment into a module to remind the students to complete the peer review.

However, you do not have to do this step.

Step 1: Create a new assignment called “Peer Review for X” or something similar:

• TIP: include “do not submit here but read these instructions” in the name so students don’t get confused.

Step 2: make sure to select “no submission,” but do put a due date

Step 3: Add this peer review assignment to your module

What Students See

Step 1: The module with both assignments

Step 2: They click on the “Workshop Draft” to submit the peer review

• TIP: You could make this clearer by putting instructions in the name of the assignment so it shows in the module. (“Workshop Draft - submit peer review here”)
• The below shows “none assigned” because I’m in the “test student” screen. However, students would see a name that is linked to that person’s submission.

This is what students would see:

• they will not see any comments that others wrote to the student writer
• They will see the “Add a Comment” box

Help Students

Instructions you could give to students

Your peer review assignments will be assigned through Canvas after the due date for the workshop draft has passed.

For more information about how to access peer feedback assigned partners, see the links below:

• How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete?
• How do I submit a peer review to an assignment?
• Where can I find my peers' feedback for peer reviewe d assignments?

Frequently Asked Questions

When will I see my assigned peer review?

• You will not see your assigned peer review until after the due date and time for the original assignment.

For example, if the workshop draft is due at 11:00 pm, you will see your assigned peer review for this assignment 11:01 pm.

• If you do not see your peer review after the original assignment due date and time, try refreshing your window.

Where do I see my assigned peer review?

• You must go to the original assignment to see your assigned peer review. For instance, go to the 1 Workshop Draft assignment to see your assigned peer review.
• You may also see your peer review as a “to do” item on your Canvas Dashboard.
• For more help, How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete?

When is the peer review due?

• Check the calendar for due dates and times.
• ⚠️ Canvas will show that peer review is due at the same time as the original assignment, but this is wrong.

What should I write for my peer review?

• See the "Minimum Requirements" above.

How do I submit a peer review?

• For more help: How do I submit a peer review to an assignment?

How can I see the feedback that I received?

• For more help: Where can I find my peers' feedback for peer reviewed assignments?

Primary Category

How to Create a Peer Review Assignment Using FeedbackFruits in Canvas

Home » Support » How to Create a Peer Review Assignment Using FeedbackFruits in Canvas

SKIP AHEAD TO

At a Glance

The Group Member Evaluation tool in FeedbackFruits streamlines the way students assess their peers’ collaboration skills. As the instructor, you specify the criteria your students will use to evaluate their peers’ contribution to group work. Groups are automatically synced from the People tool in Canvas to FeedbackFruits.

Additionally, you can require that students add comments to the feedback they have provided to their peers, thereby combining quantitative and qualitative feedback.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to create a peer review assignment using FeedbackFruits in your Canvas course.

Create Groups

If you’d like students to provide peer feedback to some or all of their group members, first you need to create your groups in your Canvas course:

• How do I add a group set in a course?
• How do I manually create groups in a group set?
• How do I manually assign students to groups?

Create a Peer Review Assignment

• Type the assignment title in the Assignment Name field [1]. If you created your assignment as an assignment shell, this field will be populated for you, but you can change it if necessary.

• Note: If you leave this field blank, you will not be able to publish/save the assignment. You can add a voice note or an attachment to the instruction if needed.
• Individually
• Individually: Students will individually get assigned to anyone.
• Note: This option is disabled if ‘as a group’ is chosen.
• Note: This option is disabled if ‘individually’ is chosen.

• Groups selected to participate (select the Group Set you’ve already created).

• To learn how to set up criteria, refer to Setting up feedback criteria (rubrics, scale ratings and comment criteria) .

• Reviewers will not be able to view or edit their reviews after this deadline passes.
• Leave the deadline blank to allow reviewers to view and/or edit their feedback indefinitely.

• If you want students to review all their group members, we recommend selecting All .

• Reviewer anonymity: Enabling this option will make reviewers anonymous. Reviewers will still see the name of the peer they are reviewing. Instructors can also see the name of the reviewer.
• New user interface design: Students use the new design for reviewing and reading feedback. This option is enabled by default and is recommended.
• Optional – Rate Reviewers: You can choose if you’d like students to rate their reviewers or reflect on it [1].

Related Resources

• How to Create an Assessment of Skills Assignment using…
• FAQ: Non-Standard Canvas Sites
• How to Manage Your Course Sessions in Canvas
• Privacy Statement

Live Trainings

• Canvas Essentials
• Digital Whiteboarding
• Poll Everywhere
• View All Live Trainings

Request Forms

• General Support Request
• Course Copy Request
• Consultation Request
• View All Request Forms

Self-Paced Courses

• Build a Gold Standard Canvas Course
• Create a Virtual Exam
• Flip Your Class
• View All Self-Paced Courses

Quick Start Guides

• Membership Tool
• Term Start Checklist
• Teaching Spaces
• Teaching Studio
• Reserve a Space
• Classroom Technologies
• Equipment Recommendations

Recent Blog Posts

Canvas Peer Review Guide for Students

What exactly are peer reviews?

Peer reviews are assignments where students receive another’s paper, make comments and annotate, and return to its original owner. They’re a tool used by faculty to improve student writing, feedback skills, and to clarify learning goals and assignment details.

However, they’re not always so clear. Through several conversations with students, we’ve learned two important things:

• Students need clear expectations.
• Rubrics are essential.

With this in mind, the Office of Digital Learning has prepared the following student guide to Canvas peer reviews. We hope this will help you to understand how Canvas can mediate the peer review process.

Introduction to Canvas Peer Review

Your instructor may ask you to do a peer review once you’ve submitted your assignment on Canvas. In order to locate the peer review, you can use the following steps:

• Click on the Assignments link in navigation.

2. Click the title of your selected assignment.

3. Under Assigned Peer Reviews, you will see the review assigned to you (sometimes anonymous). Click on the student name or review available.

4. To download the submission, click the name of the assignment. For annotating the document within Canvas, select View Feedback.

5. From this window, you can add comments, highlight (and even write!) directly to submission.

• To leave a comment, click on the “ballon” icon.
• For highlight, click on the next icon of a “pen.” From here you can also leave comments similar to Microsoft Word.
• To add text, click on the “T.”
• For writing, on computer or via an iPad, use the “paint brush” icon.

6. If you’ve been assigned to review via a rubric, you do not have to annotate the document for it to be considered “completed.” However, please follow your instructors instructions on how to complete the peer review! To use the rubric, click on the top right corner, “Show Rubric.” When you are finished, click the “Save Comment” button.

7. Once you have completed your annotation, rubric, etc., feel free to share an assignment comment for the entire document. This is often required if there is not an attached rubric. This is where you can re-upload your comments if you chose to annotate the document outside of Canvas.

8. Don’t forget to click save!

We’re Here to Help

We hope this student guide has been helpful. If you get stuck, please do not hesitate to reach out to candlerdigitallearning [at] emory [dot] edu . We would be delighted to help you!

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

• #1516 (no title)
• Canvas Resources
• Digital Tools and Resources
• Faculty Resources
• Faculty Workshops
• Online Teaching and Learning
• Student Resources
• We’d love to hear from you!

• Knowledgebase
• Canvas → Assignments

Canvas: How to create a peer review assignment

• How do I use peer review assignments in a course?
• How do I create a peer review assignment?
• How do I manually assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor?

Need more help?

Faculty learning opportunities, new articles.

• How to Change the Thumbnail Image on Canvas Studio Videos
• How to Do Webcam Video or Screen Recording in Canvas Studio
• Canvas: How to Import SCORM Files as Assignments or Pages
• How to use Sign Language View in Microsoft Teams 
• How to Solve Respondus LDB or Monitor Issues Reported by Students
• How to View All My Canvas Courses as An Instructor
• Tips for Turnitin Issues
• How to Change Assignment Dates for Incomplete Students

Canvas Peer Review

A peer review assignment enables students to provide feedback on another student’s assignment submission. Peer reviews allow communication between students and can help students master the concepts of a course and learn from each other.

• Can show students’ names or be completed anonymously
• Rubrics can be included to ensure consistent review criteria
• Manual or Automatic distribution
• Available for Discussions and Assignments

Getting Started

Canvas Peer Reviews are a part of the Canvas Calendar. Begin by logging in to Canvas .

Instructor Resources

• From within your Canvas course, edit or create a new assignment.
• Scroll about halfway down the screen, locate and check the box to Require Peer Reviews .
• Select to assign peer reviews manually or automatically .
• If assigning automatically, determine how many reviews each student should complete and the date/time they should be made available for review. Note: It is recommended to leave several hours between the assignment due date/time and the assignment of peer reviews so that late submitters are not excluded from being reviewed.
• How do I use peer review assignments in a course?
• How do I create a peer review assignment?
• How do I manually assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor?

Enabling peer review of a Canvas discussion

• From within your Canvas course, edit or create a new discussion.
• Scroll about halfway down the screen, locate and check the Graded box, then choose to Require Peer Reviews .
• How do I use peer review discussions in a course?
• How do I create a peer review discussion?
• How do I manually assign peer reviews for a discussion?
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for a discussion?

Syllabus Statement

Student resources.

Locating a peer review activity in Canvas

When your instructor assigns a peer review as part of an assignment or discussion, you will receive a notification in several locations: on the Recent Activity view of the Dashboard, in your To Do List, and on the specific assignment/discussion.

Click the link to begin the peer review.

See the ‘ How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete? ‘ guide for more information.

Submitting a peer review in Canvas

To complete the peer review of an assignment/discussion, you must review the student’s assignment/discussion and add a comment in the comment sidebar.

If your instructor includes a rubric, which is a pre-determined outline of how an assignment is graded, you must assign a grade using the rubric. However, your instructor may also ask you to leave a comment in the comment sidebar.

Some peer reviews may also be anonymous, which means you cannot view the name of the student whose assignment you are reviewing. Additionally, the student cannot see your name as the reviewer when you leave a comment to complete the review.  

Review the ‘ How do I submit a peer review to an assignment? ‘ guide for more information.

Viewing a peer’s feedback in Canvas

When a peer has provided feedback on your assignment, you will receive a notification in the Recent Feedback section in the sidebar of your Canvas course. Feedback is also accessible via the assignment’s submission details or on the individual assignment page.

See the ‘ Where can I find my peers’ feedback for peer reviewed assignments? ‘ guide for more information.

Online Documentation

• Privacy Policy

The Canvas Calendar and Scheduler tools are supported by Instructure. Use one of the following channels to connect with their 24/7 support:

• live chat — open the ?Help menu in Canvas and click ‘Chat with Canvas Support’
• ticket support — open the ?Help menu in Canvas and click ‘ Report a Problem ‘
• phone support — call 515-294-4000, then follow the prompts for Canvas support

Center for Teaching and Learning

Engaging students with peer review.

In this module, you will learn how to use two peer review tools, Canvas Peer Review (the peer review feature of Canvas Assignments), as well as a 3rd-party tool, Turnitin PeerMark,  to enable students to learn from each other by reviewing their peer's work and providing feedback. 

Why Peer Review?

Peer review provides students an opportunity to learn from each other by reviewing their peer's work and giving each other feedback.  The challenge is: 

How can we enable students to respond thoughtfully and constructively in their review?

Peer review, when implemented well, is beneficial not only for the person being assessed but also for the peer assessors. It helps develop students' ability and skills of discerning strengths and weaknesses, offering strategies and solutions for improvement. Many students appreciate the opportunity to learn from their peer's work, share their thoughts about a peer's performance, and get constructive feedback from their peers. 

This module introduces you to two tools for peer review:

• Canvas Peer Reviews : When you create a Canvas assignment and configure the assignment settings, you have the option of requiring students to review the submissions of this assignment by other students and provide feedback. 
• Turnitin PeerMark:  PeerMark is an application of a 3rd-party software package, Turnitin. Turnitin is licensed at Georgia Tech and integrated with Canvas. When you create an assignment, you can choose to allow students to submit it through Turnitin and enable PeerMark for peer review. 

Let's take a look at how you can use these two tools to enable students to learn from each other through peer reviews. 

Technology for Peer Review: Turnitin PeerMark

How does it work for instructors?

Turnitin is a 3rd-party tool integrated with Canvas. While it is well-known as a tool for analyzing the originality of assignment submissions and detecting plagiarism, its PeerMark feature allows peer reviews on the submissions. Setting up the peer reviews involves the following steps: 

1. Create a Turnitin assignment with PeerMark Enabled

The process of creating a Turnitin assignment is similar to the process of creating any new assignments that use external tools - You choose  External Tools  as the submission type, and select  Turnitin External Tool  from the list of available external tools. Once you save the assignment as a draft, you will the Assignment Inbox page where you can customize the assignment settings. To enable PeerMark, you just simply check the box next to  (see screenshot below). 

This video tutorial  demonstrates how to create and set up a Turnitin assignment step by step. Please note that it does not enable PeerMark though. We will explain how to set up PeerMark in the next step. 

2. Set up PeerMark

Once PeerMark is enabled, you will see a PeerMark tab show on the top of the page. It has a drop-down list that gives you two options:  PeerMark Setup  and  PeerMark Reviews  (see the screenshots below). You may choose  PeerMark Setup  to customize how and when students should do the peer reviews. Peer reviews can be automatically assigned, you may allow students to choose which submission they would like to review. You can also decide whether the peer reviews are anonymous or attributed. 

Please refer to  the detailed instructions on how to set it up . 

3. Create PeerMark Questions

When you create the assignment, you can choose to use a rubric for the peer review. The rubric can be used for scoring the assignment submissions by using the criteria and scales defined in the rubric. If you want your students to provide additional feedback, you may add specific questions to solicit responses. You may choose questions available in the library or create your own questions, which could be saved to the library for use in the future. Two question types are available: Free Response and Scale. 

To learn more, please refer to  this documentation on how to add PeerMark questions .

4. Review assignment instructions before publishing it

After you finish PeerMark setup, you can publish the assignment. However, we recommend that you review the instructions of the assignment to see if they provide students with clear information on what they are expected to do and how to do it for the peer reviews. Here is a checklist for you to consider regarding what to be included in the assignment instructions: 

• When is the assignment due? 
• When are students assigned to do the peer reviews?
• When are the peer reviews due? 
• Are peer reviews assigned to students or do you allow them to select the peer reviews?
• How many assignment submissions will each student review? 
• How are students expected to do the peer reviews? For example, are they supposed to respond to any questions? Should they provide inline comments?
• Are the peer reviews anonymous?
• Does students' evaluation of the assignment submission count for its grade?
• Do students get credit for completing the peer reviews? 
• Are there any instructions you can provide to your students regarding how to do the peer reviews? - The section below, How does it work for students? provides resources that you can provide to your students.

5. Provide instructor feedback

Besides having students review and provide feedback on the assignment submissions, you may provide your feedback as the instructor.

This video tutorial  demonstrates how to use QuickMarks and other commenting tools to provide feedback. 

6. Verify and review students' peer reviews

You can verify if students have completed the peer reviews assigned to them and review the feedback they provided. Please watch  this video tutorial  for more details.

Instructor Guides

The  instructor guides  on the Turnitin website provides help documentation on creating and managing Turinit assignments, using and interpreting similarity report, as well as setting up and managing PeerMark. 

How does it work for students?

The PeerMark assignments allow students to read, review, and evaluate assignments submitted by their peers. The basic stages of the PeerMark peer review process are: 

Submit a Turnitin assignment in Canvas  - We recommend that you have the assignment submission checked for its originality, grammar, spelling, etc. Students could use the reports generated from Turnitin to improve their assignments before submitting the final version. That means you need to allow multiple submissions before the assignment is due. Here is a  video tutorial  on how students submit a Turnitin assignment and view the originality and e-rator reports.

Conduct Peer Reviews  -  This tutorial  demonstrates how students can use QuickMarks and other commenting tools to conduct peer reviews and provide feedback in a PeerMark assignment. 

View and rate peer feedback  - After the peer reviews are released, students can view the feedback they received from their peers. They can also rate the helpfulness of the review by selecting a number on a scale from 0 to 10. Here are  instructions on how students view and rate peer feedback

Student Guides

The  student guides  on the Turnitin website provide help documentation for students on how to submit a Turnitin assignment, interpret the similarity report and the e-rator feedback, and how to conduct peer review and provide feedback in a PeerMark assignment. 

Technology for Peer Review: Canvas Peer Reviews

Introduction.

The Assignments tool in Canvas gives you an option of requiring peer reviews. Setting up the peer reviews takes a few steps: 

• Enable peer reviews when creating a new assignment. 
• Manually or automatically assign peer reviews. 
• Decide whether the peer reviews will be anonymous or not.
• Save the assignment draft. 
• Add a rubric for peer reviews. 
• Review the instructions of the assignment before publishing it.
• Verify and view students' peer reviews.

Enable peer reviews when creating a new assignment

When creating an assignment, you can require students to review submissions of this assignment by other students and provide feedback What you need to do is check the box next to  Require Peer Reviews  in the assignment settings. 

Manually or automatically assign peer reviews

You have two options when assigning peer reviews: 

• Manually assign peer reviews : Choose this option if you want to assign a particular student to review another.  Here are instructions on how to do it . 
• Automatically assign peer reviews : If you choose this option, Canvas will randomly assign peer reviews for you. You need to decide how many reviews each student needs to complete, and enter the date when the peer reviews will be assigned. The Assign Reviews date must come on or after the assignment due date. If left blank, Canvas will use the assignment due date.   Here are instructions on how to do it . 

Note : When automatically assigning peer reviews, students will not be assigned peer reviews or see their assigned peer reviews until they have submitted their own assignment. When manually assigning peer reviews, students can complete their assigned peer reviews without having to submit their own assignment first.

Decide whether the peer reviews will be anonymous or not

If you want to make peer reviews anonymous, check the box next to  Peer Reviews appear Anonymously . Anonymous peer review is a double-blind process. The reviewer cannot see the name of the assessee, and the assessee cannot identify the reviewer. 

Save the assignment draft

Once you finish configuring the assignment settings, you may save a draft of the assignment by clicking the  Save  button. We do not publish the assignment at this time because there is one more thing to do, adding a rubric for the peer reviews. This step cannot be done until we save the draft. 

Add a rubric for peer reviews

After you save the assignment draft, you can see that you have the option of adding a rubric that students can use for evaluating their peers' work. Using a rubric can help guide students' peer reviews by providing them with criteria that are clearly defined for the evaluation. Here are  instructions on how to create and add a rubric for assignments . 

Review the instructions of the assignment before publishing it

After you add the rubric for the peer reviews, you can publish the assignment. However, we recommend that you review the instructions of the assignment to see if they provide students with clear information on what they are expected to do and how to do it for the peer reviews. Here is a checklist for you to consider regarding what to be included in the assignment instructions: 

• When are the peer reviews due? - Note that you can only set the due date for the assignment submission in the settings. You have to provide the due date of the peer reviews in the instructions.
• How many reviews will be assigned to each student?
• How are students expected to do the peer reviews? For example, is there a rubric for them to use? If yes, are they supposed to write comments in addition to evaluating the assignment with the rubric? 
• Do students get credit for their peer reviews? - The peer reviews assignment won't allow you to assign a grade for students who completed the peer review. However, you may create a no-submission assignment and assign students a grade for completing the task.
• Are there any instructions you can provide to your students regarding how to do peer reviews in Canvas? - The section below,  How does it work for students?  provides resources that you can provide to your students.

Verify and view students' peer reviews

You can verify if students have completed an assigned peer review in the peer review page. You can also use SpeedGrader to view how each student evaluated the assignment submission by using the rubric, and what comments they provided. Here are  instructions on how to verify and view students' peer reviews .

Instructor Guide

• How do I use peer review assignments in a course? 
• How do I create a peer review assignment? 
• How do I manually assign peer reviews for an assignment? 
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor?

A peer review assignment does not look any different to students than other Canvas assignment that does not require peer reviews. Therefore, students will submit the assignment the way they usually do for any assignments. The peer reviews are not assigned to the students until after the assignment is due. 

The video tutorial below demonstrates how students conduct peer reviews in Canvas: 

In summary, here are three essential things that student need to know about peer reviews: 

How do students know when a peer review is assigned to them?

Once a peer review is assigned to students, they will be notified about the task via email. Please note that how they receive the email notification depends on how they set up their notification preferences. 

Students can also view a notification in three areas within the Canvas course site: 

How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete?

You can provide the link below to students for related instructions:  

How do students submit a peer review to an assignment?

The process of peer reviews is similar to what instructors would do when they grade assignments.  If the assignment submission is  a file supported by Canvas DocViewer , it can be rendered in  SpeedGrader , which is a tool for grading assignments and quizzes and providing feedback within the submissions. Students can use the markup tools of the SpeedGrader to provide annotated comments on the assignment submissions. 

If a rubric is provided for the peer reviews, students could score the assignment by using the criteria defined in the rubric. Please note that the score does not get entered into the gradebook. Only the instructor can actually grade the assignment. 

Adding comments on each score on the rubric is optional, but could be encouraged because it is an opportunity for the reviewers to explain why they gave a certain score for each criterion. Please note that the annotated comment would not be anonymous so it should not be used for anonymous peer reviews. 

In addition, overall comments can be added by typing in a comment box or attaching a separate document. Video or audio comments can be recorded and attached. 

You can provide the link below to students for related instructions:   

How do I submit a peer review to an assignment?

How do students view feedback from peer reviewers?

Students can find peer feedback on their assignment submissions in several places. First, there is a notification under  Recent Feedback  on the right sidebar in Canvas. They can go to  Assignments  and open that particular assignment to view the feedback. 

Where can I find my peers' feedback for peer reviewed assignments?  

Canvas Peer Reviews vs. Turnitin PeerMark

You just learned how to use Canvas Peer Reviews and Turnitin PeerMark for peer review assignments. They have some features in common, but each seems to have something unique. You might be thinking: which tool should I use? To help you make decisions, we do a side-by-side comparison of these two tools in what they enable you to do in terms of these four aspects: 

• Schedule peer reviews
• Assign peer reviews
• Conduct peer reviews
• Assess peer reviews

You can download the 2-page feature comparison below to learn more details. 

Strategies for Using Peer Review Effectively

Make it transparent

Purpose, task, and criteria are three components of the  Transparency Framework  for creating assignments. This framework can be applied to peer review. You should communicate with students about the key benefits, the purposes, the process, and the criteria of peer review, which will help students take this task seriously and put efforts into it. 

Consider students' workload

You need to consider students' appropriate workload when you decide how many reviews should be assigned to each student and when the peer review will be completed. Having to review too many submissions within a short time could affect the quality of the feedback provided. 

Use rubrics or provide question prompts

Develop a rubric to guide students' review:  what to be reviewed and what criteria are to be used for the review. Go over the rubric with students and address questions they may have on applying the rubric criteria to their review. If you do not use a rubric, you may consider asking a few free-response and/ or scale questions to guide students' peer reviews. 

Offer guidance on providing good feedback

Provide students with guidelines on how to provide good feedback.  Model the respectful, informative, and constructive commentary that you expect of your students. You may use the RISE model as a guide for providing quality peer feedback:

Reflect (Recall, Ponder, and Communicate) :

• I relate/concur/disagree with X because…
• I like what you did with X because…

Inquire (seek information and/or provide ideas through questioning) :

• Have you considered looking at X from Y perspective?
• When you said X, am I understanding that you meant XY?

Suggest (introduce ideas for improvement of current iteration) :

• You might want to consider tweaking X for Y effect…
• You might want to include supporting information for X resource …

Elevate (raise a higher degree or purpose in future iterations) :

• Perhaps you can expand on this in X fashion to further address Y…
• Perhaps you can re-purpose X as Y for Z…

Provide help guides on using the peer review tool

Assume your students do not know how and provide help guides on how to use the peer review tools. You may use the student guides included in the previous sessions. 

Allow revision and resubmission

Provide students an opportunity to revise their work based on the feedback they received and resubmit their improved product. 

Recommended Resources

• Using Peer Review to Improve Student Writing : This is a comprehensive guide on using peer review from the University of Michigan. Although it is focused on using peer review to improve student writing, the strategies and techniques could be applied in other disciplines.
• Using Student Peer Review in Any Class : This resource compiled by the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo summarizes the Why and How of using peer review in any class. It also provides a list of other resources and further readings.

Accessibility Information

Download Microsoft Products   >      Download Adobe Reader   >

University Center for Teaching and Learning

How to create assignments for your canvas course.

• Quick Start
• Instructor Help
• Student Help

How to Create Assignments

Using assignments in Canvas provides a streamlined process for assigning homework and creating quizzes for students.  Canvas considers an ‘assignment’ to be anything that is graded, whether that be a quiz or homework assignment, and whether it’s delivered entirely online, paper-and-pencil, or is a participatory assignment with no actual deliverable.

This Quick Start guide will cover the creation of assignments where the student submits a file electronically, on paper, using an external tool such as Turnitin or Panopto , or where no submission is expected (e.g. class participation). See How to Create Tests and Quizzes for Your Canvas Course and Create and Manage Discussions for more information about using those tools as assignments.

1. In the Course Navigation menu, click the Assignments link.

2. Click “ +Assignment ” at the top right.

3. Write the assignment title and directions for students.

4. Assign the number of points available for the assignment.

5. Choose an “ Assignment Group” . Assignment groups are, in essence, a category of assignment. For more information about using Assignment Groups, see the Canvas guides regarding Assignments.

6. There are four submission types :

• No Submission: an activity where nothing will be collected from students (e.g. a participation grade)
• For the full details about the online assignment subtypes, (text entry, annotation, file upload, etc.), please see the official documentation .
• We have a recorded mini-webinar on annotation assignments, including assignment ideas, available on the Training Webinars page.
• On Paper: assignments/quizzes/activities that were written on paper and collected by the instructor
• External Tool: assignments submitted through a 3rd party tool that is integrated with Canvas, such as a textbook publisher’s website or Turnitin

7. Submission Attempts: You may allow unlimited submission attempts for Online assignments, or restrict attempts to one or more. When a student submits to an assignment they have already submitted to, the previous submission is retained as well, and the instructor may view both.

8. Group Assignments and Peer Reviews:  Assignments can be created as either a group assignment or peer review assignment.

9. Assign options- You can assign an assignment to your entire class, a specific student, and/or a section of your class. You can also set the due date and the availability dates (when your students can submit their assignment). Each section can have different due dates and availability dates.

10. If you are finished creating the assignment, click on “ Save & Publish “. If you are not finished creating the assignment, click on “ Save ” and you may come back and work on it more later without students having access to it.

Instructor Help for Assignments

Creating assignments.

• How do I create an assignment?
• How do I add a moderated assignment to be graded by multiple reviewers?
• How do I create an online assignment?
• How do I add or edit details in an assignment?
• How do I add or edit points for an assignment?
• What assignment types can I create in a course?
• How do I limit submission attempts for an assignment?
• How do I add an assignment that includes anonymous grading?
• How do I enable anonymous instructor annotations in student submissions?
• How do I import SCORM files as an assignment?
• How do I publish or unpublish an assignment as an instructor?

Managing Assignments

• How do I use the Assignments Index Page?
• Can a student resubmit Canvas assignments?
• How do I assign an assignment to everyone in a course?
• How do I assign an assignment to a course group?
• How do I assign an assignment to a course section?
• How do I assign an assignment to an individual student?
• How do I view differentiated assignments with different due dates in a course?
• How do I bulk update due dates and availability dates as an instructor?
• How do I delete an assignment?
• How do I duplicate an assignment?
• How do I move or reorder an assignment?
• How do I use Direct Share to copy an assignment to another course?
• How do I use Direct Share to send an assignment to another instructor?

Creating and Managing Peer Review Assignments

• How do I create a peer review assignment?
• How do I use peer review assignments in a course?
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I manually assign peer reviews for an assignment?
• How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor?

Creating External Tool Assignments

• How do I add an assignment using an external app?
• How do I create a cloud assignment with a Microsoft Office 365 file?

Using Assignment Groups

• How do I add an assignment group in a course?
• How do I create an assignment shell in an assignment group?
• How do I create rules for an assignment group?
• How do I move or reorder an assignment group?
• How do I weight the final course grade based on assignment groups?

Grading Considerations

• How do I add a grading scheme to an assignment?
• How do I download all student submissions for an assignment?
• How do I upload all student submissions for an assignment?
• How do I exclude an assignment from the course’s final grades?
• How do I give extra credit in a course?

Student Help for Assignments

• How do I view Assignments as a student?
• How do I filter assignments by type as a student?
• How do I submit an online assignment?
• How do I submit a text entry assignment?
• How do I enter a URL as an assignment submission?
• How do I submit a media file as an assignment submission?
• How do I upload a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?
• How do I upload a file from Microsoft Office 365 as an assignment submission?
• How do I know when my assignment has been submitted?
• How do I manage celebration animations in Canvas as a student?
• How do I submit a cloud assignment with Microsoft Office 365?
• How do I download assignment submissions from all my courses?
• How do I annotate a file as an assignment submission in Canvas?
• How do I use DocViewer in Canvas assignments as a student?
• How do I submit a PDF assignment with annotations in the Student app on my Android device?
• How do I add annotations to a submission in the Student app on my iOS device?

Groups and Peer

• How do I submit an assignment on behalf of a group?
• How do I know if I have a peer review assignment to complete?
• How do I submit a peer review to an assignment?
• Where can I find my peers’ feedback for peer reviewed assignments?
• How do I view the rubric for my assignment?
• How do I view the rubric for my external tool assignment?
• How do I view rubric results for my assignment?
• How do I know when my instructor has graded my assignment?
• How do I view assignment comments from my instructor?
• How do I view annotation feedback comments from my instructor directly in my assignment submission?
• How do I view my Roll Call Attendance report as a student?
• Generative AI Resources for Faculty
• Importing Grades from Canvas to PeopleSoft
• Enter and Calculate Grades in Canvas
• End-of-term Teaching Surveys
• Finals Week Assessment Strategies
• Alternative Final Assessment Ideas
• Testing Services Hours During Finals
• Not sure what you need?
• Accessibility
• Canvas and Ed Tech Support
• Center for Mentoring
• Creating and Using Video
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• General Pedagogy
• Graduate Student/TA Resources
• Remote Learning
• Syllabus Checklist
• Student Communication and Engagement
• Technology and Equipment
• Classroom & Event Services
• Assessment of Teaching
• Classroom Technology
• Custom Workshops
• Open Lab Makerspace
• Pedagogy, Practice, & Assessment
• Need something else? Contact Us
• Educational Software Consulting
• Learning Communities
• Makerspaces and Emerging Technology
• Mentoring Support
• Online Programs
• Teaching Surveys
• Testing Services
• Classroom Recordings and Lecture Capture
• Creating DIY Introduction Videos
• Media Creation Lab
• Studio & On-Location Recordings
• Video Resources for Teaching
• Assessment and Teaching Conference
• Diversity Institute
• New Faculty Orientation
• New TA Orientation
• Teaching Center Newsletter
• Meet Our Team
• About the Executive Director
• Award Nomination Form
• Award Recipients
• About the Teaching Center
• Annual Report
• Join Our Team

Quick Links

• English Department
• CIC Student Guide
• CIC Student Resources
• Catalyst Tools
• UW Libraries
• UW IT Connect

UW English Computer Integrated Classes Maintained by CIC AD Staff

Last updated 08/22/2013

CIC Faculty Guide Online

Cic basics:, teaching with cic resources:, teaching with canvas tools:, teaching with catalyst tools:, peer review with canvas, what is canvas peer review.

Canvas allows students to electronically peer review classmates' assignments or discussions. Instructors may configure the peer review option to automatically create review groups, or they may manually assign peer groups. Whenever students submit an assignment or post to a discussion area that requires peer review, they will see a list of their assigned reviews. Clicking a name on the list will bring them directly to a review pane with their peer's draft or discussion postings. Instructors can access a peer review overview screen that indicates which students have completed assigned reviews.

Some Necessary Considerations:

The peer review feature on Canvas is a useful tool that can facilitate our work with writing in English courses whether in or out of the classroom. But, there is one notable caveat: developers have allowed only one due date for each assignment and discussion. Thus, peer review can only be set up one time within an assignment or discussion space.

This view of peer review as a one-time activity for each assignment may be contrary to the way many instructors administer peer review. However, you can absolutely use the tool to support many variations of peer review with a basic knowledge of how it works. The following information presents both considerations and steps to help achieve your instructional goals with this activity.

Before Setting Up Peer Review On Canvas:

You must first decide what type of peer review you would like to do.

This includes thinking through:

• what you want to accomplish pedagogically (i.e. work on a particular skill, have peers provide holistic feedback, etc.),
• when in the writing process your peer review will occur (i.e. before/after students have turned in their papers or before/after students have received feedback, etc.),
• and how students will be completing the peer review (as an in-class activity, as homework, etc.).

All of these elements will impact what the best protocol is for setting up assignments and peer review on Canvas. Of course you do not have to have everything figured out at the start of the quarter, but before you move to the step of setting up peer review on Canvas at any time during the quarter, the following considerations are necessary. Most courses that have writing assignments will be using some type of drafting, be it formal or informal.

Because peer review might be part of your drafting and skill-building process, it is important you consider how to administer it with Canvas. If you are teaching a 100-level EWP course, you are using the feedback pathways (more information here ), where drafting might actually be built into your sequences. There are many ways that an instructor can use peer feedback to support the drafting process.

Below are a few potential ideas of how it might work in your class:

Single Draft Peer Feedback

Single draft, or “traditional” peer review might be considered to be one that occurs before a draft has been submitted to the instructor. Usually, the peer feedback will work to develop a piece of writing that will later be evaluated by the instructor. This could be a formal (for a grade) or informal (not for a grade) activity in your class. For a peer review to occur before the submission of the assignment, you will need to create two assignments. If you decide you would like more than one draft, you will need to create multiple assignments to support those drafts.

Multiple Drafts with Peer Feedback

Informal Peer Feedback

Your drafting process may be more informal and less structured. For example, you might be using a peer review for prewriting or a rough draft, meaning that you will not be evaluating this work. Students would continue revising based on their peer feedback and then submit their “final” draft to you. Of course if you are using the portfolio system, it is not “final”, but the official draft prior to the portfolio submission. In this case, you have two options. You can also set up multiple assignments (i.e. “Short Assignment 3 Rough Draft”, and “Short Assignment 3”). You can attach the peer review to the rough draft, or whatever you choose to name it.

Another option, however, would be to use the Discussion function rather than the Assignment function in Canvas. This could be particularly appropriate for focusing on a particular skill (i.e. claims, stakes), a brainstorming/prewriting type of peer review, or a “wildcard” peer review (usually toward the end of the quarter, where students can choose which of their pieces they want more feedback on). It might also be a good choice If you are planning to have students do the activity in class, and if there might be a value to students being able to see everyone’s feedback (this is not required in Discussion, but an option). Something else to keep in mind: If you choose to do a “rough draft” or to add an informal peer review to a discussion, you can change the grading setting to (complete/incomplete) so you are just checking for participation.

Below is an example of an informal peer feedback assignment:

Critical Questions/Response Instructions By noon on Monday, 6/10, briefly respond to 1-2 peers' blog entries, noting how they might build upon their existing analysis as they work toward Essay 2 and posing questions to help them do so. Has your peer made a claim he/she could apply to additional shots/scenes/elements of overall form? Has he or she discussed shots, scenes or patterns that could be examined via the lens of one of the Essay 2 topics? Your role is to help peers develop their ideas-in-progress further.

Additional Tips:

• When naming the titles of Assignments and Discussions , you can choose what you like, just be sure to remain clear and consistent with your students.
• You can and should use different types of peer review activities . This helps to keep students engaged and meet different learning styles.
• Students will need instructions from you on how to use the type of peer review you have selected in Canvas, and also a pedagogical explanation for the value of peer review. Remember that many students (especially at the 100-level) have not used peer review, and if they have, they still might have skepticism about its benefits. Peer review is not a self-supporting activity. Like anything other type of lesson, it requires instructions, guidance, and a transparency toward purpose and function (scaffolding).
• It is always important with any activity, but especially those utilizing technology to prepare for a contingency plan . This is especially a concern if you are conducting your peer review during class time. For example, if you are doing the peer review during class and have manually assigned, a student absence might create an issue. To help prevent this, you can try assigning 3 or 4 peer reviews to each student. That way, the likelihood of issues are reduced. Or, you can wait to do the assignments on the day of. Prepare a short activity (like a free-write) while you do this in class.
• There have been some glitches with the auto-assign function, so you may need to try that again if students can't access papers immediately . However, always be mindful of the time . If you are spending too much time trying to make a function work, consider an alternative plan. Other options include having students email one another, utilize the hard drive, or look on eachothers’ screens.Try to be prepared and use your best judgment in order to best meet the needs of your class.
• If you need advice on Peer review , either on thinking through it pedagogically or functionally on Canvas, please seek out the support of EWP’s CIC administrative staff Kimberlee Gillis-Bridges ([email protected]) and Mandy Hobmeier ([email protected]). You can also visit Canvas' instructor support guide or directly contact the Canvas help team ([email protected]).

Setting up Peer Review Within an Assignment on Canvas

How to set up peer review within an assignment:.

• Next, set the due date in the Assign Reviews section. Setting the due date is essential on Canvas. You MUST make the due date after assignment is due. You can put in a date if you want to, if you don’t, the peer reviews will be assigned right when students turn in papers. If you want to have them wait, set it, but it is not necessary. Canvas does not allow multiple due dates within a single assignment. Refer to the previous information to think through this. It may be appropriate to set up another assignment at this time. Once you have selected the Assign Reviews due date, proceed to setting the assignment's other information. Select For “ Everyone ” from the drop down menu. Select the due date, and the available from and available to sections. Then go to Update Assignment . For more information on how students can submit their peer feedback and view their peers’ feedback once given, go here and here .

Setting up Peer Review Within a Discussion on Canvas

How to set up peer review within a discussion:.

It is not necessary to use the formal peer review function if you want to have students give each other feedback on a discussion board. So long as you allow for threaded replies, you can have students informally respond to each other or even prompt them with more specific questions. However, if it is important for you to moniter, track, and grade peer reviews, you may want to use the Peer Review function within a Discussion.

• Next, decide whether or not you want everyone to view everyone’s feedback. If you want or do not mind all students viewing everyone else’s feedback as well as their work, all you need to do is set up a discussion area with instructions on who will read whose work and general guidelines for giving feedback. This might be helpful if you are trying to share or generate ideas or focus on a particular skill. But, length is also a consideration. If the assignments are more than 1-2 pages it is probably best for students not to view everyone’s.
• If you decide you want your students to see each other work, but not the feedback their peers receive, then use the Require Peer Reviews option and follow the same steps for peer review in the Assignments function above. You can enable the option for peer review by checking the Use for grading box.
• If you feel that creating one discussion area for submission/feedback or submission/peer review would be unwieldy, you may create two and set both up the same way.
• You may also want to make the grading type “ Complete/Incomplete ” rather than specific points so you can just give participation credit rather than evaluating.

Checking Progress and Viewing Completed Reviews

The Student View in Peer Review

1. Once students have been assigned their peer reviews, they will see a list of their assigned reviews :

2. Next, students will click on their peers' names to access their drafts.

3. From there, a document review screen will open. Students can click the preview icon to see their peer’s text and open Canvas’s in-text comment options .

4. Students are able to comment in multiple ways, the "Add a Comment " function allows them to include a brief note.

5. Students are also able to make comments directly on the draft by using Canvas'' “Comment” options, pictured below.

6. Once finished, students might want to attach a file (if appropriate), but will also need to save.

7. After saving, Canvas will display a confirmation message above your students' peer’s text. Note that they may have to refresh the page to see the message.

Ohio State nav bar

The Ohio State University

• BuckeyeLink
• Find People
• Search Ohio State

Carmen Peer Review for Instructors

CarmenCanvas gives you the option to set up peer reviews in an Assignment or Discussion. Peer review assignments enable students to provide feedback on another student's assignment submission in Carmen. They can annotate, comment and use a rubric to evaluate work submitted by their classmates. Typically, peer review happens after an assignment is due, and students will only be able to complete a peer review if they have submitted the assignment being reviewed. Peer reviews can be assigned to show student names or display anonymously.

Important cautions

• The date for automatically assigning randomized peer reviews must fall after the due date for the assignment (the default setting must be changed, if only to fifteen minutes later).
• Until the availability period for the assignment ends, both the original author and the reviewer can resubmit a file that will overwrite the original .  To prevent this, set the availability period to be the same as the due date.
• If peer review is used for Group Assignments, the random assigning of reviews does not take group membership into account (so students might be assigned to review others either in or out of their groups).   
• Manually assigned peer reviews show the assignment's due date in the student's dashboard To-Do list. However, once you assign a peer review, the due date still shows the due date of the original assignment, not the peer review. 

See Implementing Peer Review in your Course for additional information on why peer review is beneficial and how to design a successful peer review activity. 

Create peer review assignments

 See the following Canvas guides for detailed directions on creating peer review assignments: 

• How do I use peer review assignments in a course?  
• How do I create a peer review assignment?   

You can manually assign each student to review other's work or have reviews randomly distributed with a single click. This randomization process can be set up ahead of time, so it happens automatically after all assignments have been submitted. If assigning automatically, determine how many reviews each student should complete and the date and time they should be made available for review.

We recommended leaving several hours between the assignment due date/time and the assignment of peer reviews so that late submitters are not excluded from being reviewed. Neither students nor instructors will see the peer review assignments until after the due date for the assignment . 

See the following Canvas guides for more information about manual and automatically assigning peer reviews: 

• How do I manually assign peer reviews for an assignment?   
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for an assignment?  

Create peer review discussions 

See the following Canvas guides for detailed instructions for creating a peer review discussion:  

• How do I use peer review discussions in a course?  
• How do I create a peer review discussion?  

See the Canvas guides below for detailed instructions on assigning peer reviews manually or automatically. Please note, if you're assigning automatically, determine how many reviews each student should complete and the date/time they should be made available for review. 

We recommended leaving several hours between the discussion due date/time and the assignment of peer reviews so that late submitters are not excluded from being reviewed. Neither students nor instructors will see the peer review discussions until after the due date for the discussion . 

• How do I manually assign peer reviews for a discussion?  
• How do I automatically assign peer reviews for a discussion?  

View and grade peer reviews

You can access the peer review comments by clicking Peer Review from the Assignment page . Peer review comments also display in SpeedGrader along with any other comments left on the assignment. 

Students don't automatically receive a grade for completing a peer review. If you want to award points for peer reviews, you can create a no submission assignment in the gradebook and assign points manually. 

See How do I view student peer review comments as an instructor for more information.

Student resource

You might consider sharing the Peer Review for Students article with your students to help them navigate using Carmen peer reviews. 

Search for Resources

You're signed out

Sign in to ask questions, follow content, and engage with the Community

• Canvas Question Forum
• Subscribe to RSS Feed
• Mark Topic as New
• Mark Topic as Read
• Float this Topic for Current User
• Printer Friendly Page

• Mark as New
• Report Inappropriate Content
• All forum topics
• Previous Topic

SCORM Assignment Submissions not Registering Spora...

Overall percentage is not displaying in students v..., peer reviews, lockdown browser issue, canvas outcomes report, downloading quiz summary, speedgrader, community help, view our top guides and resources:.

To participate in the Instructurer Community, you need to sign up or log in: