Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.
Comment: Moved Additional Settings to under PeerMark Assignment Settings

Using PeerMark - guidance for staff

Contents

Table of Contents
minLevel2

...

PeerMark is one of a number of ways Moodle editors can set up student peer review (and optionally self review) in Turnitin assignments. PeerMark can accommodate a range of different media beyond the essay, and can happen before or alongside the standard tutor assessment [N.b. check how they interact]. PeerMark entails feedback only from the student reviewers i.e. no grade or numeric mark. However, reviewers can be assigned numeric marks for their review.

...

  • Students' ability to understand and work with assessment criteria.
  • Through formulating constructive feedback which suggests how peers can improve, insights into how they themselves can improvego about critiquing and improving their own work.
  • Students' participation in the authentic academic practice of peer review.
  • The possibility of feedback that is quicker, more individualised, and more plentiful than tutors are able to provide.Avoiding 'learned dependence' (Yorke, 2003)  
  • The possibility of feedback on students' draft work, with sufficient time for amendments before the deadline.
  • Avoiding 'learned dependence' (Yorke, 2003) - students' over-reliance on tutor opinions, and humility about their own understandings which may interfere with their development.
  • Triangulation - the original submission, peer reviews and tutor assessment (not to mention self assessment where used) can be compared, giving students new perspectives on their submission, the criteria, and the reviews they have written.
  • Relatedly, insights into subjectivity and governance in the assessment process.
  • Also relatedly, a departure from monologic, transmissive feedback as students weigh up the differences in the reviews. This in turn promises a desirable change in the way feedback is received from simple certainties to more sophisticated, evaluative thinking (Schommer, 1990)
  • Provision of feedback on students' draft work - given sufficient time for amendments before the deadline.

...

  • .
  • An occasion for dialogue with tutors and peers about assessment.

Keith Topping (2009) suggests explaining to students,

...

In the 'Peermark Assignment' tab of the PeerMark Manager you enter basic information about the activity.

Title

This will appear for students and should be distinctive and descriptive.

Point value (required)

The marks available for the peer review itself - i.e. not for the reviewed work. This reflects research findings that asking students to assign numeric marks to their peers exacerbates any sense of risk and brings undue complications and pressure to peer review without bringing any particular learning benefits.

Instructions to students

Brief guidance about what students should do and why.

Start date, Due date, Post date

NB How do these relate to the Turnitin assignment's dates?

Make sure you click the 'Save & Continue' button to proceed to the next tab.


 

On the 'Peermark Assignment' tab there is a link for additional settings. Here's some explanation of the less obvious ones.

'Award full points if review is written' 

If ticked this means tutors will not be able to mark the reviews and a student will need to meet set requirements for every part of the review in order to get the available marks, on an all-or-nothing basis. If unticked, tutors can assign and differentiate marks for each student's review. 

'Allow students to view author and reviewer names'

If left unticked, you probably need to remind students not to put any identifying information in the title, filename, or body of their work.

'Paper(s) automatically distributed by Peermark'

This sets the number of randomly allocated papers each student has to review.

'Papers(s) selected by the student'

This sets the number of papers a student can choose to review. Students can review a combination of allocated and selected papers.

'Require self-review'

If checked, a student has to review their own paper. It isn't currently possible to select self review only - the number allocated by PeerMark has to be at least one.

Image Removed
Info

Considerations

Instructions. Students tend to prefer tutor marking, which may indicate positivist beliefs about objectivity in marking and the assumption that there is a correct mark for their work which is not open to interpretation (McConlogue, 2012). Most researchers into peer assessment (including Bloxham and West, 2007; McConologue, 2014; Nicol, 2010; Topping, 2009) stress the need to discuss with students the rationale, criteria and expectations for peer review before, during and after the activity, rather than relying on textual instructions alone. Discussing or negotiating expectations could clarify how much time students were expected to spend on each review and an indication of how much feedback should be given. These particulars would help to even out the quality and quantity of peer feedback and avoid perceptions of unfairness (Cartney, 2010).

Point value. This should be sufficient to indicate to the students that their participation in peer review matters.

Image Removed

 

 

 

Adding Questions

The 'PeerMark Questions' tab of the PeerMark Manager allows you create the questions you want the peer reviewers to answer. To add a question, click 'Add question'

Image Removed

Enter your question text, the question type. There are two types of question you can use;
a 'Free Response' question - for example "What is the thesis of the paper?" and a 'Scale' question – for example "How well does the introduction pull you in as a reader? Scale, Not very well to
Really well"

 

For a 'Free response' question, enter the minimum answer length (this counts words).

Image Removed

For a 'Scale' question, enter the scale size and the lowest and highest values

Image Removed

You can also use libraries to manage your Peermark questions. Clicking on Library Settings allows you to create and delete libraries, and to save and retrieve questions from those libraries. There is also a 'Sample Library' which you can add pre-made questions from.

 

Info

Considerations

  • Questions. These relate to the assessment criteria and the intended learning outcomes of the course. However, there is a clear message from the peer assessment literature about the importance of involving students in developing and clarifying criteria, even if they arrive at similar criteria to the tutors. The purpose here is to increase a sense of ownership, reduce anxiety, and also reach a shared understanding about the meaning of the criteria which (Falchikov and Goldfinch, 2009) improves reliability and validity - and with those, confidence in the process. 
  • What kinds of questions? It is very important that as well as value judgements, the feedback also suggests how the reviewed student can improve.
     
  • Order of questions. Topping (2009) recommends asking students to give positive feedback first, since this improves subsequent acceptance of negative feedback.
  • Opportunities for practice. Again, there is a clear recommendation from the literature that students have the opportunity to rehearse working with the criteria. This could fit well with the aforementioned recommended discussion of the criteria.

 

 

Distribution

Note

Please note that after reviewing has started you won't be able to pair students - so do make any allocations in advance.

In the 'Distribution' tab of the PeerMark Manager you can see all the student accounts associated with this assignment and how they will be allocated reviews. If you want to, this is where you can get involved with who reviews whose work.

If you can't see all the accounts you are expecting, click outside of the Peermark Manager to return to your Turnitin assignment page; then click its 'Turnitin Students' tab. From there you can click 'Enrol all students', which will bring in all students 'enrolled' in that Moodle course area.

 

If you need to exempt student from the PeerMark activity, you can exclude them by clicking their adjacent red Minus icon; their name displays greyed-out and they gain a green Plus icon, which you can click if you need to reinstate them.

If you want to pair students (so that a particular student is allocated the work of another particular student to review, overriding any other distribution settings) you can do so by clicking the blue Plus icon and then selecting a student to pair with from the dropdown list. Paired students are then required to review the work they are allocated.

Info

Considerations.

Does it matter which students review which other students' work? You may want to connect students on the basis of interest. Another way to achieve this is to set up groups in your Moodle area and apply these to the Turnitin assignment.

Image Removed

 

 

 

Additional Settings

Dates. Since Turnitin is for formative feedback, PeerMark on draft work may be helpful, in which case set the Feedback Release Date to allow time for students to make changes in advance. The time allowance for the PeerMark activity (i.e. between Start Date and Due Date) should reflect the time students are expected to spend, and accommodate their other commitments.

Image Added

 

 

PeerMark Assigment - Additional Settings

On the 'Peermark Assignment' tab there is a link for additional settings. Here's some explanation of the less obvious ones.

'Award full points if review is written' 

If ticked this means tutors will not be able to mark the reviews and a student will need to meet set requirements for every part of the review in order to get the available marks, on an all-or-nothing basis. If unticked, tutors can assign and differentiate marks for each student's review. 

'Allow students to view author and reviewer names'

If left unticked, you probably need to remind students not to put any identifying information in the title, filename, or body of their work.

'Paper(s) automatically distributed by Peermark'

This sets the number of randomly allocated papers each student has to review.

'Papers(s) selected by the student'

This sets the number of papers a student can choose to review. Students can review a combination of allocated and selected papers.

'Require self-review'

If checked, a student has to review their own paper. It isn't currently possible to select self review only - the number allocated by PeerMark has to be at least one.

Image Added

 

 

Adding Questions

The 'PeerMark Questions' tab of the PeerMark Manager allows you create the questions you want the peer reviewers to answer. To add a question, click 'Add question'

Image Added

Enter your question text, the question type. There are two types of question you can use;
a 'Free Response' question - for example "What is the thesis of the paper?" and a 'Scale' question – for example "How well does the introduction pull you in as a reader? Scale, Not very well to
Really well"

 

For a 'Free response' question, enter the minimum answer length (this counts words).

Image Added

For a 'Scale' question, enter the scale size and the lowest and highest values

Image Added

You can also use libraries to manage your Peermark questions. Clicking on Library Settings allows you to create and delete libraries, and to save and retrieve questions from those libraries. There is also a 'Sample Library' which you can add pre-made questions from.

 

Info

Considerations

  • Questions. These relate to the assessment criteria and the intended learning outcomes of the course. However, there is a clear message from the peer assessment literature about the importance of involving students in developing and clarifying criteria, even if they arrive at similar criteria to the tutors. The purpose here is to increase a sense of ownership, reduce anxiety, and also reach a shared understanding about the meaning of the criteria which (Falchikov and Goldfinch, 2009) improves reliability and validity - and with those, confidence in the process. 
  • What kinds of questions? It is very important that as well as value judgements, the feedback also suggests how the reviewed student can improve.
     
  • Order of questions. Topping (2009) recommends asking students to give positive feedback first, since this improves subsequent acceptance of negative feedback.
  • Opportunities for practice. Again, there is a clear recommendation from the literature that students have the opportunity to rehearse working with the criteria. This could fit well with the aforementioned recommended discussion of the criteria.

 

 

Distribution

Note

Please note that after reviewing has started you won't be able to pair students - so do make any allocations in advance.

In the 'Distribution' tab of the PeerMark Manager you can see all the student accounts associated with this assignment and how they will be allocated reviews. If you want to, this is where you can get involved with who reviews whose work.

If you can't see all the accounts you are expecting, click outside of the Peermark Manager to return to your Turnitin assignment page; then click its 'Turnitin Students' tab. From there you can click 'Enrol all students', which will bring in all students 'enrolled' in that Moodle course area.

 

If you need to exempt student from the PeerMark activity, you can exclude them by clicking their adjacent red Minus icon; their name displays greyed-out and they gain a green Plus icon, which you can click if you need to reinstate them.

If you want to pair students (so that a particular student is allocated the work of another particular student to review, overriding any other distribution settings) you can do so by clicking the blue Plus icon and then selecting a student to pair with from the dropdown list. Paired students are then required to review the work they are allocated.

Info

Considerations.

Does it matter which students review which other students' work? You may want to connect students on the basis of interest. Another way to achieve this is to set up groups in your Moodle area and apply these to the Turnitin assignment.

Image Added

 

 

 

Accessing Peermark reviews

...