Using PeerMark - guidance for staff
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| Edinburgh University has made a number of PeerMark case studies available, including the experiences and thinking of staff setting up peer assessment for the first time. Nb you may need to allow the media in your web browser security settings. For general peer assessment design principles and case studies, see the University of Strathclyde's PEER Toolkit and contributions from Eva Sorensen (Chemical Engineering) and Richard Milne (Virology) on UCL's Teaching & Learning Portal. For troubleshooting see this guidance from the University of Reading. |
What are the benefits of student peer assessment and peer feedback?
A well-conceived peer assessment activity can advance:
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Considerations Won't students take each others' ideas? This reservation is widely held by students. Richard Milne (UCL Centre for Virology) comments on his own experience of setting up peer review activities, "I wasn't worried about students stealing each others' ideas ... you discuss a subject with somebody else and then formulate your own way of thinking about it based on the conversation you’ve had". Students can be encouraged to credit each others' ideas (and a convention can be agreed for circumstances of anonymity). Can students at any level of knowledge carry out good peer reviews? A meta-analysis by Falchikov and Goldfinch (2009) found that peer assessment at introductory levels was as valid as at higher levels. They attribute this to good preparation. Can peer assessment work in every subject area? Falchikov and Goldfinch (2009) found that subject area has little effect on validity or reliability of peer assessment. They also report that peer assessment of academic products (e.g. essays, posters) or processes (e.g. oral presentation skills, groupwork participation) tend to have more validity than those in the context of professional practice (e.g. internships). This may relate to students' greater familiarity with academic products and processes. Their research also suggests that while students are equal to peer-assessment in one new discipline, they may struggle with multi-disciplinary assessments. Will students be willing to do it? That depends. Read on. |
Setting up a new PeerMark Assignment
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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 This refers to 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 a sense of risk, causes anxiety and sometimes resentment, 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
Make sure you click the 'Save & Continue' button to proceed to the next tab. |
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On the 'Peermark Assignment' tab there is a link for additional settings. Here's some explanation for 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. |
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