Group Member Evaluation structures the process for students giving feedback on their peers' skills.
All our tools are set up in steps. In Step 1 you will set overall instructions. In Step 2 you set the feedback deadline, criteria, and the required amount of evaluations each student has to submit. In Step 3 students read the feedback they received and (if you require them to do so) write a reflection on the feedback they receive.
First fill in a Title, then continue to Step 1.
Step 1: Instructions
Fill in instructions. Fill in your overall instructions for the assignment (see the screenshot below for an example). Note that if you leave this field blank, you will not be able to publish/save the assignment. You can add a voice note or an attachment to the instruction if needed.
The assignment can be an individual- or a group assignment. Click change to choose between one of the following three options:
Students work:
Individually
As a group
Review:
Individually. Students will individually get assigned to anyone.
Within groups. Students individually get assigned someone within their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ is chosen)
Outside of their group. Students individually get assigned to someone, not in their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ is chosen)
As a group. All members of a group get assigned the same work. (Disabled if ‘individually’ is chosen)
If you would like the students to either work or review in groups, you will have to select or configure the groups. Note that you can only configure groups when students have been added to the assignment.
This will allow for the following combinations with their respective use:
Students work individually, review individually.
Use this option when all students work individually, for example an individual presentation, and you would like the students to review other students individuallyStudents work individually, review within groups.
This is the most used option in Group Member Evaluation and the option selected for assessing teamwork and team performance. With this option students will individually review members of their group, for example, on collaboration skills and group participation.Students work individually, review outside of their groups. With this option students will individually review members outside of their group. For example, groups have been sorted by presentation topic and students need to review someone with a different presentation topic.
Students work as group, review individually.
Use this option when students have collaborated on a project as a group, and need to review another group individually.Work as a group, review as a group. Use this option when students have collaborated on a project as a group, and you would like the students to all review the same other group.
Step 2: Given reviews
In this step, you specify criteria to help guide students as they give feedback. Click configure to edit, add, or delete criteria. Click here for a detailed guide on setting criteria.
Required number of peers to review Specify how many peers/group members/groups each student will review. If you have chosen group option 2 and you want all peers to review each other, please select "all". If you require more than one review from each student, you can choose to instantly assign all available peers, so students will see all the peers they'll need to review straight away, rather than having to complete the first review before continuing with the second.
Students also do self assessment Students are able to review their own work before reviewing their peers.
Automatic outlier detection This feature intends to help teachers quickly identify out-of-the-ordinary situations in teamwork assignments. This is based on how students rated themselves and their peers. For more information about this feature, have a look at our help article.
Settings
Scheduling deadlines Set the deadline for giving feedback. Note that reviewers will not be able to view or edit their reviews after this deadline passes. Leave the deadline blank to allow reviewers to view and/or edit their feedback indefinitely.
Allocations:
By clicking ‘change’ you will be able to select your preferred method of allocation.
Automatically - One by one: The students will be assigned a review one by one, the second review will appear after starting the first one, and so on. This is the default and recommended method of allocation.
Automatically - All at once: Only available if the amount of required reviews is set higher than 1. With this allocation option, students will be assigned all the reviews they'll have to complete at once. The advantage of this is that students will see all their peers at once. The disadvantage is that it allows for less flexibility, i.e. if students only complete 1 review, the others can no longer be assigned to someone else who does complete all the reviews. This option is only recommended when the required amount of reviews is set to ‘all’.
Manually: It is also possible to create all allocations manually. Now, none of the students will be automatically assigned. For each student, you are able to select who they will review. Please note, that after clicking done, it is not yet possible to change the manual allocations you just made. For guidance on how to set up manual allocations, please review our help article.
Students choose who to review: By selecting 'Students choose who to review' as the allocation method- once the review process has started- students will be able to select the student or group they want to review at the review step. If multiple reviews are required, students will select the allocations one after another.
Anonymity This feature allows students to review their peers anonymously. Although the students themselves are not, the teacher is able to see which student wrote what comment.
Visibility Choose when the students can see their feedback. You can set this to 'instantly', 'after release date', a 'certain date' or 'never'.
Finally, you can also set (optional) instructions for your students to keep in mind while they give feedback.
This is what a student will see: they sees their teammates at step 1 (including themselves) and at step 2 they sees the group that they need to review. When finished with the review, the student will see 'review complete' in green with a tick.
Step 3: Received reviews
In this step, students read the feedback they received. You can also enable that students rate their reviewers. This could motivate students to give better feedback and to improve.
For this step, it is also possible to set a deadline. Students will not be able to write a reflection after the deadline passed. Note that students can still view the feedback and their reflection after the deadline. If you do not set a deadline, students can write and/or edit their reflection indefinitely.
Step 4: Reflection on activity (optional)
Writing a reflection is a valuable step to end an assignment with. The student can for instance write a reflection on how the whole process of giving feedback went. This step can be added through clicking on the purple-circle-plus-button (at the end of the final step). The option of ‘Reflection on activity’ will be then visible (see images below).
In the image below, you can see that it can have a deadline, as well as a required length of words. There is also a description field in which you can specify what you want students to reflect on regarding the assignment. Students can start with this step when they completed step 2: 'Give feedback to your(self and) peers'.
Grading
Moreover, you can add grading to your assignment by clicking on the purple plus button on your left. You can configure how many points do you want to give to each process of the assignment like in the following screenshot.
Configurable Group Contribution Factor within Group Member Evaluation
The Group Contribution Grading feature calculates a student’s grade based on their individual contribution to the group project in a Group Member Evaluation assignment.
With this feature, teachers gain a better insight into the group dynamics during a project. This sheds light on potential imbalances between students' cooperation, or spotting non-contributing students. Teachers can configure grading thresholds to determine the final grades based on Group Contribution Factor. It’s important to note that Group Contribution Grading should be applied after a group project deliverable is finished and has been graded.
There are two possible options for Group Contribution Grading:
Group Contribution Factor: a grade adjustment suggestion relative to the rest of the group members, so students who were rated higher than the rest of the group get a higher grade and students who were rated lower receive a lower grade. Read more information about it here.
Group Skill Factor: an absolute factor based on each peer’s received ratings compared to the maximum ratings they could have received. This can be used to lower the grade of students who got rated relatively low by their group mates. Read this article for more detailed information.
Finally, click Publish in the top-right corner of the screen. When you have finished setting up the assignment, it is time for the students to get started!
You can always come back to edit settings by clicking the three dots in the top-right corner of the screen and click edit.
This concludes the Setting up Group Member Evaluation tutorial.
If you have any questions or experience a technical issue, please contact our friendly support team by clicking on the blue chat button (Note: support is available 24h every weekday & unavailable on the weekend).
