E-learning – Peer Assessment

The Peer Assessment is an application where students assess each other. This principle is referred to in the English-language literature as "peer assessment".

Unlike the more familiar "peer review", where assessors are selected from among experts in the field to provide a qualified and impartial assessment of the submitted research, in the case of peer assessment, assessors are selected at the discretion of the teacher, typically from among the students. Thus, submitters and assessors often come from the same group of people.

By assessing your peers' work, you get an insight into the way your classmates think about the assignment, which can inspire you to gain a new perspective or deeper understanding of the topic at hand. Therefore, be in solidarity and strive to provide quality and constructive feedback even in the case of verbal comments. Keep in mind that providing thoughtless (and unjustified) praise or criticism will get you nowhere and will not help your colleagues either. Please follow the teacher's instructions carefully.

Students are typically informed by the teacher about participation in the peer assessment, similar to other activities in the course. If set up, the application sends emails to submitters or assessors about their role in the peer assessment. The information emails include all relevant information related to the assessment.

All the peer assessments that are assigned to you in a particular semester can be found via:

Peer assessments are displayed differently depending on the role of the person in a particular assessment.

The submitter is a student of the course or seminar group with the right to submit to at least one homework vault that is attached to the peer assessment. If the submitter submits at least one file on time to at least one linked homework vault, the file (or files) so submitted will be included in the distribution and subsequently assigned to the assessor. If submitters are grouped, it is sufficient if at least one file is submitted on time by at least one member of the group, as it is assumed to be a file produced by the whole group.

The assessor can be a student of the course, seminar group or a person specified by the UIN (učo). When distributed, assessors are assigned to submitters whose files they assess via an assessment form. If student assessors are allocated to groups, they will always have one assessment form for the whole group per each submitter. Even in this case, it is sufficient for a single member to enter the assessment, as it is assumed that the assessment is by the whole group.

Assessors, as well as submitters, are determined at the discretion of the teacher, who also determines how many submitters a single assessor gets to assess. In special cases, the teacher of the course in which the peer assessment is located may also be the submitter or assessor.

It is possible to hide the identity of both assessors and submitters in peer assessment. This is called pseudonymity, which ensures that the name or the UIN (učo) of the assessor or submitter is not displayed anywhere in the application and the submitted files are renamed so that they cannot be linked to the file name in the homework vault. However, the Peer Assessment application does not delete metadata from the submitted files or check their content. Therefore, if the submitter signs directly into their work or leaves metadata in the file (e.g., the author of a Word document), even with pseudonymity set, the assessor can still find out the identity of the submitter in peer assessment.

Course teachers always know the identity of submitters and assessors.

If it is set up to send emails by application, you will receive an email with a direct link to sign up for the group.

The Peer Assessment uses the course topic lists to group students. Lists are always found at:

The topic list is usually named the same as the peer assessment, indicating whether it is for the submitters or the assessors. If the topic list is created manually by the teacher, it can be called anything. So always follow the teacher's instructions carefully.

The name of a topic in the topic list is also the name of the group, and those who applied to join it are members of the group. You can also find the members of the group to which you are subscribed in the

If you are asked to apply to join the submitter or assessor group for an assessment but have not yet done so, the peer assessment will be displayed as an error with a prompt to join a group.

If you do not manage to join the group of submitters or assessors by the required date, you will no longer be considered as a submitter or assessor by the application during the peer assessment process. Therefore, your submitted files will not be assigned to assessors and you will not be assigned any work to assess.

You can also be randomly assigned to a group of submitters or assessors by application, manually by the teacher, or by signing up for a topic of a list that already existed in the course. If the group names are automatically created by the application (and not by the teacher), they can be in the form of a Group number, e.g. "Group 1", or an Animal adjective, e.g. "Sabertooth Bear Cubs".

In the application, a specific peer assessment always lists all the homework vaults to which you have the right to upload a file.

After clicking on the tile of the peer assessment, just continue via the "Homework Vaults" link. If you don't see the peer assessment, make sure you have the correct period and study selected in the page header. If you have already submitted the file, you will see it here. If you are part of a submitter group, you will also see a list of all its members here.

In addition, you can also upload files to the peer-assessmented homework vaults via

All of the types of files that can be uploaded to the homework vault in the course study materials can be submitted for peer assessment. The application has no other limitations. However, the assessor has to be able to open your file in order to assess it. Therefore, we recommend that you follow the teacher's instructions strictly regarding what types of files can be submitted for a given activity.

When evaluating a video (or audio recording), the file format used may be problematic if it cannot be played directly in a browser, or if it can only be played on devices with a particular operating system, etc. We therefore recommend that the submitted video (or audio) is converted to HTML5 format, which can be played directly in the browser without downloading, even in the peer assessment. This will ensure that the assessor can access the content of the submitted recording regardless of the operating system or software you used to create the recording. Apart from that, there is no need to deal with anything else.

The procedure for conversion to HTML5 format is described in detail in the Help here. It is advisable to take into account that the conversion may not take place immediately, but may take some time.

The application always lists all the submitters assigned to you for a particular peer assessment.

If the assessors are set to be notified of their role by email from the application, then a direct link to the assessment is included.

In the case of a group, one assessment form is always common for all members of the group. All members of the group have access to the assessment form. The way to access it is the same as when the assessors are individuals:

The assessment form includes a feature that displays a warning if the second or any other member of the group is editing the form at the same time as the member who first started editing the assessment form. The purpose of this warning is to prevent group members from accidentally overwriting their work.

The warning applies to the entire form, so it does not necessarily mean that the first editing group member filled in the same question. Thus, if group members are communicating with each other, for example, via a videoconferencing platform, and it is certain that another member's work will not be undesirably overwritten, the second and any subsequent editing member can force their changes on the form. However, we recommend using this feature with caution, as overwriting content in this way is irreversible.

Changes to the form from two group members with less than ten minutes between them will be evaluated as concurrent edits. Thus, if multiple group members have an assessment form open but do not make any changes to it, it is not a concurrent edit from the application's perspective.

If the application is set up to send emails to submitters or assessors, these dates and a link to the peer assessment are always included in the informational email.

In addition, you can also find this data directly in the application at any time (by clicking on a specific assessment), depending on your role:

If you do not submit before the start date listed here, your file(s) will not reach the assessors, even if you submit them later. You have to upload the submitted files to the designated homework vault folder by yourself, for example, emailing them to the teacher is not sufficient. You also have to submit the files to the designated folder of the homework vault (or one of its subfolders).

In the event that you fail to assess your assigned files by the end date of the assessment, the submitter will not receive feedback from you and you have not completed the activity assigned by the teacher.

If you are requested to join a group of submitters or assessors but do not do so by the required date, you will no longer be considered a submitter or assessor by the application during the peer assessment process. Therefore, your submitted files will not be assigned to assessors and you will not be assigned any work to assess.

If the submission deadline has not yet passed or by when to assess, the teacher has the option to postpone these deadlines. As with other activities in the course, however, the teacher may make their timely completion contingent on successful completion of the course. Therefore, the teacher is not obliged to change the deadlines associated with peer assessment at the request of the students in any way.

The submitter can find the assessment of their file in the application:

Just click on the "Results" link on the green peer assessment tile. If this has been set up for the peer assessment, the submitter will also find the individual question assessment in the notebook.

All peer assessments in a given semester and study can be found here:

If you don't see the peer assessment here, even though you should, first check that you have the correct study and period selected in the Student agenda at the top right of the page. Next, you need to have the correct role selected.

Exceptionally, the peer assessment may be deleted by the teacher. However, in this case the application sends information emails to those who have been informed by the application as submitters or assessors.

Persons who are not students or teachers of the courses in which the peer assessment is located may be designated as assessors by the teacher. In this case, the peer assessment is located in

You need to have the correct faculty selected at the top right of the page.

If the application is set up to inform assessors by email, then a link to the peer assessment, including the deadlines by which the assessment is due, is also included in this email.