.. _PA for Students:

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Peer Assessments for Students
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You may want to let your students know what to expect when they complete peer assessments. This guide walks students through each step of the process.

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Student Instructions
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Peer assessment problems have several steps--you'll submit a response, then assess (grade) peer responses, and then assess your own response.  When you come to a peer assessment problem in the course, you'll see the question and a response field, followed by grayed-out steps that show you what you'll do next.

.. image:: /Images/PA_S_QandRfield.png
   :alt: Image of a peer assessment question and student response field

Here, we'll walk you through the process of performing a peer assessment:

#. Submit your response to a question.
#. Assess, or grade, responses that other students have submitted.
#. Assess your own response to the question.
#. Receive your score and provide feedback on the peer assessment.

At any time during the assessment, you can see your status at the bottom of the page under **Your Grade**. A message tells you the steps that you still have to perform before you can receive your grade. For example, you may see the following message:

	Not Completed

	You have not completed the Peer Assessment step and Self Assessment step of this problem.


Submit Your Response
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Read the question carefully. Some instructors include important information in the question, such as how long your response must be or specific topics your response must cover.

.. note:: Your response must contain fewer than 10,000 words (approximately the equivalent of 20 pages of 8.5x11 paper, with text single-spaced).

After you compose a response, type it into the response field under **Your Response**, and then click **Submit your response and move to the next step**. If you can't finish your response all at once, you can click **Save Your Progress** to save a draft of your response, and then come back and submit it later.

After you submit your response, if no other students have submitted responses yet, you'll see the following message:

	Waiting for Peer Responses

	All submitted peer responses have been assessed. Check back later to see if more students have submitted responses. You'll receive your grade after you complete the peer assessment and self assessment steps, and after your peers have assessed your response.

If other students have already submitted responses, the peer assessment step starts immediately after you submit your response. However, you don't have to start grading right away. If you want to stop working and come back later, just refresh or reopen your browser when you come back. New peer responses will be available for you to grade.

Note that you can go back and review your response at any time after you submit it. To do this, click the **Your Response** heading to expand the response field.

.. image:: /Images/PA_S_ReviewResponse.png
   :alt: Image of the Response field collapsed and then expanded


Assess Peer Responses
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When peer assessment starts, you'll see the original question followed by another student's response and a rubric. Above the rubric you can also see how many responses you'll assess, how many you've already assessed, and the amount of time you can expect to spend on each assessment. Below the rubric is a field where you can provide comments about the student's response.

.. image:: /Images/PA_LMS-PARubric.png
   :alt: Image of the question, response, and rubric

The rubric contains *criteria*, each of which has several *options*. Read the student's response and the rubric carefully, and then select the option that you think best reflects the student's response.

When you've selected options in the rubric, provide additional comments about the response. When you're done, click **Submit your assessment and move to response #<number>**.

When you submit your assessment of the first student's response, another response opens for you. Assess this response in the same way that you assessed the first response, and then submit your assessment. You'll repeat these steps until you've assessed the required number of responses. The number in the upper-right corner of the rubric updates as you assess each response.


Assess Your Response
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When you've completed enough peer assessments, your self assessment opens. You'll see your response along with the same rubric that you used in the peer assessment step. Assess your response, and then click **Submit Your Assessment**.


Receive Your Score and Provide Feedback
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After you submit your self assessment, if other students are still assessing your response, you'll see the following message under **Your Grade**.

	Waiting for Peers to Assess Your Response

	Your response is still undergoing peer assessment. After your peers have assessed your response, you'll see their feedback and receive your final grade.

If you see this message, keep checking back periodically until peer assessment is complete.

When peer assessment is complete, you can see the scores you received from all of your peers, as well as your self assessment. You can also see any additional comments that your peers have provided.

.. image:: /Images/PA_AllScores.png
   :alt: Image of a student's response with peer and self assessment scores

If you want to, you can provide feedback on the scores that you received under **Give Feedback on Peer Evaluations**.

Assess Additional Peer Responses (optional)
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If you've assessed the required number of peer responses and completed your self assessment, you can assess additional peer responses. To do this, click the **Assess Peers** heading. If any responses remain to be assessed, a new response opens.

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Peer Assessment Scoring
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Peer assessments are scored by criteria. An individual criterion's score is the median of the scores that each peer assessor gave that criterion. For example, if the Ideas criterion in a peer assessment receives a 10 from one student, a 7 from a second student, and an 8 from a third student, the Ideas criterion's score is 8.

A student's final score for a peer assessment is the sum of the median scores for each individual criterion. 

For example, a response may receive the following scores from peer assessors:

.. list-table::
   :widths: 25 10 10 10 10
   :stub-columns: 1
   :header-rows: 1

   * - Criterion Name
     - Peer 1
     - Peer 2
     - Peer 3
     - Median
   * - Ideas (out of 10)
     - 10
     - 7
     - 8
     - **8**
   * - Content (out of 10)
     - 7
     - 9
     - 8
     - **8**
   * - Grammar (out of 5)
     - 4
     - 4
     - 5
     - **4**

To calculate the final score, the system adds the median scores for each criterion:

  **Ideas median (8/10) + Content median (8/10) + Grammar median (4/5) = final score (20/25)**

Note, again, that final scores are calculated by criteria, not by individual assessor. Thus the response's score is not the median of the scores that each individual peer assessor gave the response.
