Introduction

Canvas Peer Review is an integrated assessment tool that enables students to give feedback on another student’s work.

As an instructor, you control whether peer reviews are assigned randomly or manually, as well as whether reviewer and reviewee names are visible or hidden. To access their assigned peer reviews, students must first submit their own work.

How to Create a Canvas Peer Review Assignment

STEP 1: Start by creating a File Upload assignment in the usual way that you would in Canvas. For guidance, see: Creating File Upload Assignments.

STEP 2: In the assignment settings, under Peer reviews, tick the Require peer reviews option to enable peer reviews.

STEP 3: Select whether you would like to manually assign peer reviews yourself or let Canvas do the work by automatically assigning peer reviews.

If you select to assign automatically, a couple of additional options appear.

STEP 4: Select whether you would like peer reviews to be anonymous. When enabled, students won’t see who wrote the feedback they receive, or whose work they’re reviewing.

STEP 5: Click Save & Publish if you are ready to publish your peer review assignment, or click Save if you would like to publish it later.

STEP 6: Check that the assignment is using a manual grade posting policy.

• Go to the Gradebook and find the column for the peer review assignment.
• Click the three dots then select Grade Posting Policy.
• Check that Manually is selected. This ensures that grades and instructor feedback remain hidden until they are manually released.

Ensuring Peer Reviews remain anonymous

When setting up a Canvas peer review, you have the option for reviews to appear anonymously. This means students do not see the name of the person they are reviewing, and the student receiving the peer feedback cannot see who left the comments. Using anonymous peer reviews can help reduce bias, support more honest and constructive feedback, encourage fairness and reduce pressure on students.

We recommend enabling Peer Reviews Apper Anonymously within the Peer Reviews settings to ensure peer reviews remain anonymous.

Anonymity settings explained: Anonymous grading vs anonymous peer reviews

Canvas peer assignments have two separate anonymity settings that are easy to mix up but serve very different purposes: one ensures fair marking by hiding student names from instructors; the other keeps peer feedback honest by hiding names from students.

How anonymity settings affect what you and your students can do

• If Graders cannot view student names (anonymous grading) is enabled, you will not be able to see student names in SpeedGrader and submissions will appear anonymously.
• If Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously is enabled, students will not see who wrote the feedback they receive, or whose work they’re reviewing.
• If Graders cannot view student names is enabled but Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously isn’t, you will not see student names in Speedgrader, but students will still see whose submission they’re reviewing and who left them feedback.
• Enabling anonymous grading and/or anonymous peer reviews will not affect what you see in the Peer Reviews area. Student names remain visible there, regardless of the anonymity settings you choose, so you will always be able to view and adjust peer review allocations as well as track completion status.

Setting Peer Review requirements

STEP 1: Decide how you would like students to provide peer feedback

You should decide before setting up the peer review how you want students to provide feedback, as this will shape the instructions, settings, and support students receive. For example, you should consider whether students will complete a rubric, leave assignment comments, or use in-line comments and annotations where available. Making this decision in advance helps ensure students understand exactly what is expected of them and reduces the risk of feedback being submitted in the wrong place in a format that is difficult to review, or the feedback being released prematurely.

Options for leaving peer review feedback

In Canvas, students can usually provide peer review feedback in three main ways: by completing a rubric, by leaving assignment comments, or by adding in-line comments and annotations to the submitted work.

• Rubrics (recommended option)
  Rubrics are the recommended method for collecting peer review feedback because they provide a clear, structured, and consistent way for students to assess work. They help students understand the assessment criteria and focus their feedback on the intended learning outcomes.
  
  Importantly, rubrics make it easier for staff to review the peer feedback, and control when this feedback is released to students. When feedback is provided through a rubric, it will not be released to students until grades are posted by the instructor, giving staff greater control over when peer feedback becomes available.
  
  Rubrics can be created and added to the assignment using the usual Canvas rubric process.
  
  Once a rubric is attached to a peer review assignment, students will automatically see and be able to complete it during the review – no additional peer review settings are needed. The rubric is available to both staff and students for grading and peer feedback. Without a rubric, students can’t leave structured feedback and they’re limited to free-text comments, or in-line comments (when anonymity is turned off).

• Assignment comments
  During a peer review, students can add free-text comments to the Assignment comments area within the submission. Because free-text comments aren’t structured, they can affect the quality and consistency of peer feedback. You should also be aware that assignment comments are visible to the reviewee immediately. If you don’t want students to receive peer feedback before grades are posted, we’d recommend using rubrics instead.

• In-line comments and annotations
  In-line comments and annotations can be helpful when detailed comments need to be linked directly to specific parts of a submission, such as sections of text or images. However, in-line comments and annotations are not available for anonymous peer reviews, so they cannot be used where anonymity is required. They can also be less suitable for collecting consistent feedback across a cohort, as students may focus on different parts of the submission or provide varying levels of detail.

STEP 2: Provide clear student instructions before the peer review starts

It’s crucial that students are given clear instructions in advance so they understand exactly what they are expected to do to complete a review, and what they should avoid doing. The instructions should explain the required feedback method, the level of detail expected, and whether the review is anonymous.

Using a rubric is recommended because it provides a structured way for students to complete the peer review. When feedback is provided through the rubric, it will not be released to students until grades are posted, giving staff greater control over when peer feedback becomes available.

Setting up Peer Review: Best practices

• Decide whether peer reviews should be anonymous before you create the assignment and reviews are assigned. Avoid changing peer review anonymity settings once the assignment has been created as this may affect what students and staff can see.
• Decide what students must do to complete a review and how they should deliver feedback. We recommend using rubrics to facilitate structured peer feedback, and avoid using assignment comments as these become visible immediately and cannot be withheld for later release.
• Set clear expectations: Tell students what they must do for their peer review to be considered complete.
• Let students know that assignment comments left during peer review are visible to the reviewee immediately, even before instructor grades and feedback are released, but feedback entered via a rubric only becomes visible once grades and feedback are released.
• If anonymity is a requirement, remind students to keep their submissions and peer feedback anonymous – no names, student IDs or email addresses in their submission, file names, attachments or peer feedback.

Further Support

The article below offers additional guidance and practical tips to help you prepare for a successful peer assessment implementation.

Staff Guidance: Peer Assessment