Peer Scholar - Getting started | University of Limerick

peerScholar is an online peer review and assessment tool that is available within Brightspace
to support peer to peer review and assessment, including peer review/assessment on individual,
group or case study assignment types.

Through a three step approach (create, assess, reflect) it enables students to provide
constructive and anonymous feedback on each other's work and facilitates critical reflection on
how they might improve their own work.

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PeerScholar functionality

PeerScholar offers the following functionality:

Integrated with Brightspace: no need to create accounts, grades synch with Grades tool in Brightspace
Multiple pedagogical activity types built in:
Classic peer & self-assessment activities
Teamwork & Group Work activities, where groups can peer assess other groups’ work together (as a group) or as individual members.
Team member evaluations (embedded in Teamwork activities – or run independently), where team members can evaluate the contributions of their group mates.
Case Study activities, where students can be group to answer different prompts and then assess peers that responded to either the same prompt, a differing prompt, or a mix of both. This activity type also allows for other custom models (e.g., training, mentors, etc).
Activities can be multimodal, and include text, videos, audio, computer code, documents, and LaTeX content
Assessment toolbox for creating quantitative & qualitative assessments
Access to validated rubrics
Annotations & inline comments (including video timeline annotation)
Ability for students to assess additional peers when they feel that doing so is helping them learn
Ability to enable self-assessment anywhere in the peer assessment process, and customize assessments to mirror peer assessments OR be unique
Capability to ask students additional questions anytime during an activity (e.g., for pedagogical, survey, or research purposes)
Customizable workflow to include/not include revisions for formative assessments
Ability to incorporate peer grades into final grades, with granular control over which assessments are used, how grades are calculated, and the weighting options
Embedded evidence-based microlearning to support and optimize student learning in accord with Self-Determination Theory
Additional training microlearning support that faculty can share with students to help them best meet the challenge of giving feedback and other activity requirements (e.g., working within Teams, performing a revision, etc).
Inclusion of embedded rubrics aligned with the microlearning resources to "close the circle" on student learning, and to ensure continual improvement of the learning with each peerScholar activity
A reflection phase with a firm focus on teaching students how to most effectively learn from constructive feedback, even when it provokes negative emotions
An ability to dynamically create peer groups in ways that allow late assignments to be "caught up" in a seamless way and without intervention by the professor
The ability for students to revisit all aspect of their activity, and to learn while doing so, after the activity is complete