Peerceptiv
Overview
Peerceptiv provides peer review functionality for multiple different assignment types, including peer assessments on assignment submissions, team member evaluations for group projects, live presentation assessments, and more. Students can be graded on their submission, accuracy of their ratings when compared to peer and instructor ratings, helpfulness of comments, and task completion.
Note: UC Berkeley has a limited number of Peerceptiv student licenses, which are granted on a first-come, first-served basis. Peerceptiv must be enabled by request in bCourses. Email peer-review@berkeley.edu to request to enable Peerceptiv in your bCourses site.
Key Features
- Anonymous peer review for a wide range of writing, presentation, graphic, video submission, and other assignments
- Flexible grading settings (including customizable weights for submission, peer review, overall tasks, and team member evaluation) and automated grading
- Custom rubrics
- Flexible deadlines
- Automated allocation of peer reviews (including by group)
- Ability for students to provide feedback on peer reviews
- Reflection stage option where students can receive credit for reviewing and interacting with peer reviews
- Students can anonymously view all feedback for a submission they also reviewed
- Students can submit self-assessments
If you’re already using the Peer Review tool in bCourses, take a look at the Peerceptiv and bCourses (Canvas) peer review functionality comparison chart to decide which tool is best for you. You can also review these slides for an overview of Peerceptiv, a little history of the tool, and helpful tips for getting started.
Instructors Getting Started
Peerceptiv must be enabled by request in bCourses. UC Berkeley has a limited number of Peerceptiv student licenses, which are granted on a first-come, first-served basis. It's strongly recommended to schedule a consultation before using Peerceptiv for the first time.
To get started with Peerceptiv:
- Create a bCourses course site. Peerceptiv is always accessed through bCourses, either through the course navigation menu or individual assignments.
- Email peer-review@berkeley.edu to request that Peerceptive be enabled in your bCourses site. Please note that UC Berkeley has a limited number of Peerceptiv student licenses, which are granted on a first-come, first-served basis.
- Once you have received confirmation that Peerceptiv was enabled in your bCourses site, click on the Peerceptiv course navigation menu link and create your Peerceptiv course.
- It's recommended to choose "Sync Mode" when creating your Peerceptiv course. This setting cannot be changed.
- Start the assignment creation process in bCourses. Create an "External Tool" bCourses assignment. This assignment will provide direct access to a specific Peerceptiv assignment (created in step 5).
- It's highly recommended to select the option to "Load This Tool in A New Tab" for the best functionality.
- Adding a due date to the bCourses assignment isn't required, but if you do, use the submission (1st phase) deadline as the due date.
- Finish the assignment creation process in Peerceptiv. If "Load This Tool in A New Tab" is enabled in bCourses, click on the link to open Peerceptiv, otherwise Peerceptiv will load within the bCourses assignment.
- Remember that assignment names must match in bCourses and Peerceptiv in order to be linked correctly.
- Add a rubric to your assignment.
- (Optional but recommended) Create extra "No Submission" assignments in bCourses for each deadline of your Peerceptiv assignment. This will populate each deadline on students' calendars and task list in bCourses.
- Make sure the assignment is published both in bCourses and Peerceptiv.
- Make grades available to students and sync them to bCourses by releasing grades in Peerceptiv.
- It's only necessary to manually release grades if you've set grade release to manual in the Peerceptiv assignment settings.
Peerceptiv FAQs
How do I enable Peerceptiv in my bCourses site?
UC Berkeley has a limited number of Peerceptiv student licenses, which are granted on a first-come, first-served basis. Peerceptiv must be enabled by request in bCourses. Email peer-review@berkeley.edu to request to enable Peerceptiv in your bCourses site.
Do I have to recreate everything that I’ve already created in bCourses if I want to use Peerceptiv?
No! A Peerceptiv course only contains Peerceptiv assignments and is where you’ll create and monitor the progress of those assignments. Peerceptiv only replaces the peer review functionality in bCourses.
How does peer review of group projects work?
Group peer assessment allows students in groups to submit one project per group and then each student in the group will be required to review other group projects.
Can you manually distribute peer reviews?
Yes! You can randomly distribute, manually distribute, or create “review circles” where the same students review one another as part of a reviewing group.
Do reviewers have to be anonymous?
At this time reviewers are anonymous, but a feature to de-anonymize reviewers is in the development process.
Can you set different due dates for different groups of students?
No, the assignment has set due dates that will apply to all students required to complete that assignment.
Does Peerceptiv allow an instructor to remove reviews/scores given by a student?
Yes, an instructor can remove both student reviews and submissions.
Can students review an assignment without submitting one themselves?
By default students must submit before they can start reviewing others, but there is a setting instructors can enable that allows students who haven't submitted to peer review.
Can students annotate the work they review?
Students can pin comments to specific areas, but they cannot highlight or do in-line editing. Research has shown that the quality of comments goes down if students get bogged down in copyediting.
Can I assign a Peerceptiv assignment to only a subset of students?
Peerceptiv doesn’t sync sections from bCourses, but you can turn off Peerceptiv email notifications so all students aren’t automatically notified about the deadlines and restrict the assignment to only certain sections in bCourses.
Can I use Turnitin with a Peerceptiv assignment?
In order to use Turnitin you need to create a separate bCourses assignment with Turnitin enabled and have students submit in Peercpetiv as well as in bCourses.
What is the “submission grade”?
The submission grade is based on the quality of the student’s submission as judged by the peer and/or instructor ratings. The ratings of the submission are first adjusted for accuracy and then used to calculate the submission grade. Please note, accuracy can only be determined if each student submission is reviewed by multiple people.
What is the “review grade”? How is it calculated?
The review grade looks at how accurate and helpful were the reviews that the student gave. Higher accuracy = a better review grade. Accuracy is determined by the ranking of a student’s ratings in relation to the mean rank, the distance from the mean for each rating prompt, and how the ratings compare to the instructor scores (which are considered 100% accurate). Helpfulness is determined by the feedback ratings that they receive from their peers whose work they reviewed.
What is the “task grade”?
Task grade assesses student completion of review, feedback, and reflection tasks, if they’re enabled. If students complete all required tasks, they get full credit for the task grade.
Service at a Glance
| Category | Details |
| System Availability | 24/7* |
| Initial Support Response Time | No longer than 1 business day |
| Services and Offerings | UC Berkeley has a limited number of Peerceptiv student licenses, which are granted to instrutors for their courses on a first-come, first-served basis. |
| Eligibility | Instructors |
| Data Protection Level | P3 - This platform stores or processes FERPA-Protected Student Records and has passed a rigorous Vendor Security Assessment. |
| Service Level | Enhanced - We help you adapt the system or service to your needs. We are available for one-on-one consultations and workshops, or to coordinate the appropriate resources to help you accomplish your goals. |
| Service Owner | Catherine McChrystal (peer-review@berkeley.edu) |
| Rates | Ongoing operations support is free of charge. |
* Except during scheduled maintenance.