Introduction
Canvas Peer Review is an integrated assessment tool that enables students to give feedback on another student’s work. Peer reviews help build a collaborative learning environment by encouraging students to support each other’s understanding of the learning outcomes and assessment criteria, while also developing their ability to provide constructive criticism and reflect on their own learning.
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. Students can only accessed their assigned peer reviews once they have submitted 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.
To enable Peer Review, the assignment’s submission type must be set to either Online, On Paper or No Submission. Canvas peer review does not support the External Tool assignment submission type.
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 decide to user peer reviews with an On Paper or No Submission assignment type, then peer reviews must be assigned manually.
If you select to assign automatically, a couple of additional options appear.
These options allow you to select the number of reviews assigned per user, as well as the option to choose a specific date when you would like Canvas to automatically assign reviews to students. If you do not select a specific date, Canvas will assign reviews on the assignment’s due date.
STEP 4: Select whether you would like peer reviews to be anonymous. When enabled, the reviewer’s name is hidden from the student receiving the feedback.
Canvas DocViewer does not support anonymous annotations, so it cannot be used to provide in-line comments on assignments that use anonymous peer review.
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.
Further Support
The article below offers additional guidance and practical tips to help you prepare for a successful peer assessment implementation.