Guidance for staff

Contents

What is PeerMark?

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. 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.

The basic stages of a PeerMark activity are:

1. Staff set up a Turnitin assignment to which students submit their work.
2. Staff set up an associated PeerMark, including review questions, setting how many pieces of work each student reviews, by when, how allocated, whether anonymous &c.
3. Students submit their work to the Turnitin assignment.
4. Students review others' work - formative feedback only, without a numeric mark.
5. Students receive the feedback given by their peers, along with a mark for their own review(s).
6. Depending on the timing, students can then incorporate this as formative feedback into a final, perhaps credit-bearing, submission.
7. Students can receive a mark from a staff assessor for their review.

What are the benefits of student peer assessment and peer feedback?

A well-conceived peer assessment activity can advance:

• Students' ability to understand and work with assessment criteria.
• Students' ability in the authentic academic practice of peer review.
• Insights, through articulating judgements and producing constructive feedback, about how students can go about critiquing and improving their own work.
• The possibility of feedback that is quicker, more individualised, and more plentiful than tutors are able to provide. 
• The possibility of feedback on students' draft work, with sufficient time for amendments before its deadline.
• Avoiding 'learned dependence' (Yorke, 2003) - students' over-reliance on tutor opinions and over-humility about the importance of their own understandings.
• 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).
• An occasion for dialogue with tutors and peers about assessment.

Keith Topping (2009) suggests explaining to students,

'...that peer assessment involves students directly in learning, and should promote a sense of ownership, personal responsibility, and motivation. Teachers can also point out that peer assessment can increase variety and interest, activity and interactivity, identification and bonding, self-confidence, and empathy with others.'