Using PeerMark - The Student Experience
- Andrew Jessup (Unlicensed)
PeerMark assignments allow you to read, review, and score or evaluate one or many papers submitted by your peers. Peer feedback is available immediately.The PeerMark assignment may be anonymous or attributed, depending on the classroom structure determined by the instructor.
The basic stages of the PeerMark peer review process are:
Submit your paper to a Turnitin assignment
Your instructor creates a PeerMark assignment and sets the number of reviews each student will be required to write
On the PeerMark assignment start date, students may begin their reviews
Write a review for each assigned paper, responding to questions written by your instructor.
Once the PeerMark assignment due date passes, no additional reviews can be written, completed, or edited
Distribution of Peer Reviews
PeerMark reviews can be distributed:
Automatically selected by the Turnitin system
Self-selected by the student
Example: two papers may be automatically selected by Turnitin. And you may be able to select two additional papers to review. Your instructor will inform you of how the papers will be distributed.
Writing Peer Reviews
Peer reviews are completed by students writing or selecting answers to free response or scale questions provided by PeerMark or created by the instructor.
Free response questions require a written response and may have a minimum length requirement. Scale questions require the students to rate an aspect of the paper that is being reviewed based on a question the instructor has created according to a scale.
Tip: A peer review can be saved and closed to be completed at a later time by clicking the Save button at the top of the peer review page. Just don’t forget to click Submit once the review is complete.
Navigate to the Turnitin assignment on your CCLE course webpage and click on the green Launch PeerMark Reviews icon.
Click on the Write Reviews button.
Click on the Start review link to start a pre-assigned review.
PeerMark will open. All the free response and scale questions that need to be completed for the peer review are located on the right side of the PeerMark screen.
To answer a free response question, click in the text box below the question and type in your response. The word minimum for the response is listed below the text box.
Selecting a Paper to Peer Review
Some instructors may create a PeerMark assignment that allows students to select one or more papers to review from the papers submitted to the paper assignment. These papers may be in addition to or instead of automatically assigned papers.
Navigate to the Turnitin assignment on your CCLE course webpage and click on the green Launch PeerMark Reviews icon.
Click on the Write Reviews button.
Click on the Select a paper to review link to choose a paper to review.
Look through the available papers to review. If you would like to view a paper in its entirety click on the grey plus icon at the bottom right corner of the excerpt.
Once you have decided which paper you would like to review click on the REVIEW THIS PAPER button.
PeerMark will open. All the free response and scale questions that need to be completed for the peer review are located on the right side of the PeerMark screen.
To answer a free response question, click in the text box below the question and type in your response. The word minimum for the response is listed below the text box.
To answer scale questions, click the radio button above the number for the rating you are giving this writer for the question.
Once the questions are completed click on the Submit button at the top of the PeerMark page to submit your review.
Adding Comments to a Peer Review
PeerMark Tools Palette
The PeerMark Tools palette contains all the commenting functions available to a student. To access the Tools palette click on Tools on the PeerMark tool bar.
The Tools palette contains two commenting tools and several composition marks that students can use in reviewing and editing their peers’ papers.
Commenting Tools
Within PeerMark, you can comment on the paper that you are reviewing. A comment is equivalent to the notes that you may write within the margins of a piece of paper.
Within PeerMark, click anywhere on the paper to add a comment.
(Optional) If your comment references a specific area of the paper, you can click and drag on the paper while the comment bubble is open to create a highlight over text. The color of the highlight can be selected before clicking and dragging. Multiple highlights can be created for each mark if there are multiple areas to reference. Highlights may overlap.
A comment icon and text box will appear. Click inside the text box and start typing.
Click Save to save your comment.
(Optional) Your comment can be edited at any time by clicking on the mark symbol for the comment. The edit and trash can icons will appear.
Click the edit icon or double click the mark to open up the comment box. Edit the comment and click Save to save any changes made to the comment.
To move a comment, click and hold on the mark symbol and drag the icon to a new location.
To delete a comment click the trash can icon.
Inline Comments
To leave an inline comment, click Tools from the PeerMark toolbar to open the tools palette.
Click the T commenting tool, then select your inline comment's color.
Click on the paper where the comment should begin. The inline comment will appear as a light gray highlight, over which you can type.
When finished, click elsewhere on the paper. The inline comment will appear as typing directly over the paper.
(Optional) An inline comment can be deleted by moving the cursor over the comment and then clicking on the gray trash can icon that appears to the left of the comment. Deleted comments cannot be recovered.
The inline comment can be moved by clicking and dragging the comment to a new location on the page. Releasing the mouse will affix the inline comment to the page in the new location.
Composition Marks
Composition Marks are standard editing marks that you can utilize when editing and reviewing your peers’ papers.
To add a composition mark to a paper, click Tools from the PeerMark toolbar to open the tools palette.
Click on the relevant composition mark.
Drag the composition mark to your desired location on the paper.
Note: Composition mark symbols with yellow backgrounds on the palette are dynamic. These marks require resizing or text added to them when added to a paper.
(Optional) To move a composition mark, click on the mark and drag it to the new position on the paper and release the click.
To delete a mark place the cursor over the mark, the trash can icon will appear. Click on this to delete the mark.
Submitting a Peer Review
Click the Submit button at the top of PeerMark.
You will receive a Submission Complete confirmation upon submission of your review.
Reading Peer Reviews
Once the PeerMark assignment post date has passed, students are able to read the reviews written on their papers.
Once logged in, click on the green Launch PeerMark Reviews icon.
Click on the green Read Reviews button for the PeerMark assignment.
Click on the links within the Reviews for your paper window to read the reviews of your paper. Names will not appear if Anonymous reviewing is activated by the instructor.
PeerMark will open with the student’s review of your paper. All answers to the free response and scale questions will be available on the right side of the screen under the Questions tab.
To view the reviewer's comments in a list click on the Comments tab.
Click on the Rate this Review button to rate the helpfulness of the review. Select a number on the scale from 0 to 10 and click on the Submit button to rate the review.
If you would like to print the review click on the Print link on the PeerMark toolbar.