Create a Peer Review Assignment

Overview

Harmonize now supports peer review. With Harmonize peer review you can:

• Make peer review easier for both you and your students using multiple due dates, auto-grading, reminders, and automatic peer assignments that will handle late and missing work for you.
• Support audio, video, and screen recording for both submissions and peer comments, making assignments more engaging and harder to complete with AI.
• Facilitate a conversation between students and their reviewers, leveraging the best part of Harmonize to keep the conversation going after the review happens.

Use the interactive demo that follows or read below about how to Create a Peer Review Assignment.

See also:

• Peer Review FAQ
• Grading a Peer Review Assignment
• Peer Review Grading FAQ
• Peer Review: Student Guide

Create a Peer Review Assignment

• Set up a Harmonize activity the way you normally would in your school's learning management system (see Add a Harmonize Component to Your Course). A few things to note:
  • Set the due date in your LMS to be when the final peer review comments are due. (Note: Moodle users cannot set a due date for external tools.)
  • Set the points in your LMS to be for both the draft and the peer reviews combined.
• In the content picker, select Peer Review.

• Open your Harmonize activity.

Requirements

Begin by setting Requirements.

• [1] Due Date. If you selected a final due date, it will appear here. If you did not, it will say "Not Set."
• [2] Milestones. Decide how many days you want between the draft submission and the peer reviews. Choose the desired number of peer reviews.
• [3] Autograding. Choose whether to use autograding. Autograding will award students points for completing their work on time and meeting specified requirements, such as word counts.
• [4] TurnItIn. If your school uses TurnItIn, you may choose to have their assignment submissions sent to TurnItIn. Note that this only works for text posted in the textbox, not for attachments.

When you are done setting Requirements, click on Write Instructions.

Instructions

Next, create Instructions. You can skip to [4] and choose Write My Own Instructions if you already have instructions, or you can use Harmonize Brainstorm to help draft instructions.

• Note: These instructions are only for the assignment post. Not the peer review.

• [1] Complexity Level. Adjust complexity level of the prompt up or down. For peer reviewed assignments, you may get better ideas at higher complexity levels.
• [2] What should the AI include in your activity? Tell the AI about your topic, class, or project.
• [3] Learning Objectives (Optional). If you have learning objectives, you can include them here. Learning Objectives will help the AI draft an activity that more closely meets your learners' needs.
• [4] Write My Own Instructions / Generate Instructions. If you are writing your own instructions, you can indicate that here. Otherwise, choose Generate Instructions.

See Harmonize Brainstorm to learn more about generating instructions in Harmonize using AI.

At the step where you draft instructions (or review the AI drafted instructions), you will have the chance to review the peer review instructions as well, but you will not be able to edit them.

• To edit the peer review instructions, see Configure Additional Settings in the Editor.
• Finally, you may choose to Skip or Set Up Rubric & AI Coach.

Set up Rubric & AI Coach

If using a rubric, you will need to set it up.

• [1] AI Coach. You can toggle the AI Coach own or off. Learn more about AI Coaching.
  • Note: The coach will check any readable text in a student's assignment post, whether that text is in the textbox or in an attachment.
• [2] Focus Areas. Carefully review the focus areas. You can edit, delete, or add focus areas. 
• [3] Not Coachable with AI. Review any areas that are Not Coachable with AI. You may want to turn off AI coaching if too many areas are not coachable.
  • Note: We can only coach on written text.

When ready, click Next.

You might need to make an additional selection, such as Generate Full Rubric.

Review and edit your rubric and then click Save Rubric.

Learn more about Harmonize Rubrics.

Publish

You are nearly done!

• [1] Additional Settings. Review the list of defaults and settings that you can change.
• [2] Configure Additional Settings/Publish. If you want to change these defaults and settings, choose to Configure Additional Settings. Otherwise, choose Publish.

Configure Additional Settings in the Editor

Most peer review settings can be fond on the Peer Review tab.

• We will pre-populate the peer review instructions area with research supported guidelines, but you can always adjust or overwrite these instructions.

• Decide whether to do peer review anonymously or with names visible. Anonymous peer review is the default.

• Choose how peer reviews will be assigned. By default, any student in the class can review any other student. Depending on which LMS you use, you may be able to divide students by section or put them in small groups.
  • Note: As pools of students get smaller, there's a higher risk that students will run out of peers to review.

• Select the number of reviews you want students to provide.

• Choose whether students will need to fill out a rubric.
  • Note: Rubric grading is enabled by default is a rubric is attached. If no rubric is attached, this option will be greyed out.

• Click Publish.

Assignment Settings

Additional settings are available on the Assignments tab.

Here you will find the following settings:

• TurnItIn Settings. Toggle this on to send submissions to TurnItIn.
  • Note: Only text posted in the text box will be sent to TurnItIn. Attachments will not be sent to TurnItIn.
• Default CC Language. Instructors teaching World Languages may wish to change the captioning language for videos.
• Video & Audio Duration Limits + Screen Capture Duration Limit. Extend limits for longer recordings and presentations.

Milestone Due Dates & Autograding

Additional settings are also available on the Milestone Due Dates & Autograding tab.

Here you will find the following settings:

• Turn on Participation Auto-Grading. Toggle autograding on or off.
• Give Credit for Late Participation. By default, this setting is off, but you can toggle it on to allow late work to count for credit. This setting is only visible when autograding is enabled.
• Minimum Word Counts. Set minimum word counts for assignment posts and peer reviews.
  • Note: Only text entered in the text box will count toward the minimum word count.
• Points. Adjust the points given to the assignment post vs. the peer reviews. This setting is only visible when autograding is enabled.

Rubric Scoring by Students

You may optionally choose to have students fill out a rubric for each other. This helps ensure that your students receive feedback relevant to the assignment and its requirements. This setting can be found on the Peer Review in tab in the editor.

Important Notes about Rubric Scoring

• In wizard: Enabled by default. If you create a new peer review assignment using the wizard and set up a rubric, we will enable rubric scoring by default.
• In wizard: No word count minimum. If you create a new peer review assignment using the wizard and set up a rubric, we remove the word count minimum for peer reviews. The word count minimum applies only to the Harmonize textbox, and we assume that students will be leaving most of their feedback in the rubric instead.
• Behavior for previously created assignments. If you created a peer review assignment prior to the recent release and want to add rubric scoring, you may be able to. Just go into the Peer Review tab in the editor and toggle on "Rubric Feedback Required."
  • Note: If any students have started to complete peer review, you will not be able to add rubric scoring to the assignment.
• Rubric is for peers to use. In general, rubrics in Harmonize peer review activities are intended to reflect the criteria for the draft, not the overall peer review process. This is particularly important if students will use the rubric to evaluate each other's work. Be sure your rubric does not include any items related to the peer review process.
  • Warning: If your rubric includes line items related to the peer review process, students will need to give each other feedback on those items, even if they aren't in a position to do so.

Frequently Asked Questions

See Peer Review FAQ.