The Peer Evaluation Enhancement Resource (PEER): A New App for Automating Peer Evaluation

Abstract

Universities have turned to peer evaluation in order to reduce problems with group assignments, such as free-riding, poor communication and low-quality contributions. However, large-scale peer evaluations are technically complex to administer and score. In this presentation, we introduce the Peer Evaluation Enhancement Resource (PEER), a desktop application that automates the process of peer evaluation. PEER comprises functions that include automatic extraction of group membership data from the Canvas LMS, a bulk mailer that can be used to send personalised invitations to participate in a peer evaluation, a template peer evaluation survey, and automatic scoring and uploading of peer marks to the student grading system. We outline how PEER has been used at Swinburne University of Technology and our plans to make the technology more widely available.