Within a Peer Review or Group Member Evaluation assignment, students used to get one or more peers assigned to review automatically. With the Manual Allocations feature enabled, it is now also possible to make changes to these automatic allocations or to create the allocations manually. You can find this option under the feedback step (step 2 for Group Member Evaluation and step 3 for Peer Review) when you are in the edit mode.
Changing automatic allocations
Once enabled, the manual allocations option can be found in the allocations dialog in 'Given reviews' step.
After clicking 'change' the Allocation method dialog will pop up.
If you do not want a certain student to be allocated automatically, you are now able to select who they will review. In the example below, some students had already been assigned to review someone by the system. As long as the student has not started with the review, you can change this allocation.
When you are finished making changes, you can click 'Done'. Please note, that after clicking done, it is not yet possible to change the manual allocations you just made. We are working on improving this to make sure that even after an initial alteration in the allocations, you are able to go back in and adjust it further.
Manually creating allocations
It is also possible to create all allocations manually by turning off the switch in the top right corner.
Now, none of the students will be automatically assigned. Note that if you do not assign them to review someone, they will not be able to participate in reviewing. For each student, you can now select who they will review.
When you click 'Done', the allocations you have made will be saved. Also, here, after clicking 'Done', it is no longer possible to change the allocations you have already made. You will still be able to create allocations for students who are not yet manually assigned to review their peers.
Group sets allocations
You will also have an option to add group sets to restrict the allocations on Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation. This also enables the possibility to set up one large assignment for several group sets (subgroups), and have the feedback allocations be contained within the group set. Please note that you are only able to use this feature within an LMS.
To enable this setting, you can open the Student Allocation dialog at step 1 and choose any of the group options. The next screen will show you the groups synced from your LMS. This setting becomes unchangeable once students start reviewing.
There are two ways in which students can be assigned to a group set, and this can be configured in the 'Given Reviews' step, as shown below.
Within the same group set, students/groups can only be assigned to students/groups on their own group set. While in different group sets, students/groups can only be assigned to students/groups in a different group set.
For example: if the collaboration options are Individually/Outside groups, then the students can only be allocated to students outside their group and outside their group set.
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.
Note: This overview will become visible once the submission deadline has passed.
If the new Peer Review UX is enabled, students can select their next review from the review overview.
After pressing select, the student will be presented the list of possible students or groups they can choose to review. The student needs to select one and press the "Done" button to create the allocation. The students can search for a particular student or group using the search icon in the menu.
Students are unable to select their own name or group and if the collaboration option is 'review outside group'. If this collaboration option is enabled, the list will have two levels; the groups and underneath them the students. Here, only the students will be able to be selected and/or searched.
Incompatibility
This allocation method is incompatible with certain other assignment settings. The option cannot be enabled along with 'submitter anonymity', as the student is required to know their fellow students' names in order to choose who to review. The allocation method also does not work when students review as a group, because the group members will have the same review allocation.
The allocation method will not have the option to be enabled will when either of these settings is selected. The tooltip will also provide a notification regarding these incompatibilities.
Note: Once students start reviewing, teachers won't be able to change the setting.
* For more information on how students are automatically assigned to review their peers, see this article.
This concludes the Manual Allocations (beta, feature flagged) article.
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).