peer2peer

peer2peer
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peer2peer is an online peer evaluation tool that allows students to provide their instructors with feedback on themselves and each of their team members. Ratings and comments are anonymous to other students, though they can be shared with other members of the team.

Best Practices

Below is a listing of recommended best practices to consider when using a Peer Evaluation tool. These recommendations have been derived from our experiences with students and faculty who used RIT's Peer Evaluation tool during the spring and summer quarter of 2007, as well as from the article, "Collaborative Peer Evaluation: Best Practices for Group Member Assessments", by Lisa E. Gueldenzoph and Gary L. May (full citation provided below).

  1. Set clear expectations prior to the start of the group project as to how the Peer Evaluation tool will be used, e.g. who will each student be evaluating, when evaluations will be done, and how the results will affect student grades.

  2. Allow students to view the Peer Evaluation questions prior to the start of the group project. Students should know what criteria will be used to rate their performance along with their group member's performance. You may want to allow students to provide input on the Peer Evaluation questions or create the evaluation as a group with guidance from the instructor. This activity will create more clarity around what is expected of them and may influence their performance.

  3. Make sure that the criteria used in the evaluation is directly related to the outcomes and goals of the group project. Be as specific to your project as possible with the questions asked to increase the accuracy of responses from students.

  4. Use the Peer Evaluation tool as a formative assessment tool. Requiring students to rate the performance of their group members multiple times throughout the project can allow for students to make adjustments to their performance based on the results. This can also be used to inform faculty of problems with group dynamics so they can step in when necessary.

    • It is important if using the Peer Evaluation tool for formative evaluations to allow students to view their results from other group members so that they can make the necessary corrections to their performance if necessary. This is an advanced feature of the Peer Evaluation tool.


  5. Use the Peer Evaluation tool as a summative evaluation at the end of a group project. This summative assessment activity can be used to view the ratings of group members by an individual, as well as their impressions of their own performance. When comparing this data on how group members rated a single performance the instructor can get a clear picture of what was going on in the group.

    • It is important if using the Peer Evaluation tool for summative evaluations to allow students to rate their own performance. This is an advanced feature of the Peer Evaluation tool.


  6. The Peer Evaluation results should not be the sole component of the individual's final grade on the group project. Peer Evaluations are subjective in nature and should be weighted with other factors of performance.

Full Citation for "Collaborative Peer Evaluation: Best Practices for Group Member Assessments"

Gueldenzoph, Lisa E., and Gary L. May. "Collaborative Peer Evaluation: Best Practices for Group Member Assessments." Business Communication Quarterly v65 .n1 (Mar. 2002): p9-20. ERIC. EBSCO. Wallace Library, Rochester, New York. 7 Sept. 2007 <http://ezproxy.rit.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true& db=eric&AN=EJ642905&site=ehost-live>.

Research

The following survey results are from students who used peer2peer during the pilot phase of the project. The results from these surveys and other forms of feedback were used to generate the list of best practices for using a peer evaluation tool in a course.