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Reference Guide - Manage a Peer Assessment Activity using Peer Assess Pro™
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Peer Assess Pro Reference Guide /

Manage a Teammate Peer Assessment Activity using Peer Assess Pro

Reference Guide for Teachers and Students

Version 5.1 2023-06-27

Peter Mellalieu peter@peerassesspro.com 

+64 21 42 0118

Patrick Dodd patrick@peerassesspro.com 

+64 21 183 6315


QUICK START GUIDE

Follow these steps to register, launch, manage, and download the final gradebook for a Peer Assess Pro peer assessment using the Xorro Survey Management system.

Step / Xorro[1]

Task / Reference Guide[2]

Guide[3]

REGISTER

once for your Xorro Teacher’s account [4] 

1.1

LOGIN

to your Xorro Teacher’s account dashboard, at https://qf.xorro.com/

1.2

ORIENT

yourself to launching and managing a peer assessment activity.

1.3

PARTICIPANTS

arranged into teams from your class list

Tip - adapt the sample Participants CSV file, here.

2.1

LAUNCH

a peer assessment activity by importing your Participants CSV.

2.3

MANAGE

your launched peer assessment activity

3.0

WARNINGS

alert you to take action with at risk teams and individuals.

3.1

TEAM RESULTS

entered as the basis for calculating a personal grade (optional).

3.3

SELECT

the Personal Result Calculation Method (optional)

3.4

REVIEW

class, team, individual feedback and grades.

3.5

PUBLISH

provisional and final feedback to team members.

3.6

FINALISE

the activity to prevent further survey responses.

4.0

DOWNLOAD

Finalised Teacher’s Gradebook, Qualitative and Teacher’s Feedback.

4.3

Download interactive at www.peerassesspro.com/quickstart-guide-for-teachers


Launching Peer Assess Pro™ using Xorro-Q: Overview

Once logged in to Xorro-Q, you launch a peer assessment activity.

During the launch process, you Import a Participants CSV that specifies team members (first, last name) arranged by their team name, login id and their email.

The Participants CSV is a comma-separated variable (csv) file that must contain the column headers shown in the example below.

Peer Assess Pro emails an activity URL that enables each team member to complete the peer assessments of their team members.

Timely reminders and personalised feedback reports are communicated to the students from Peer Assess Pro using the email addresses you provided in the Participants CSV.

Active Warnings on the Teachers Dashboard provide the teacher with advice about at-risk teams and individuals, poor peer assessment rating behaviour, and other progress indicators.

>>> View the comprehensive online and eBook ‘Get Started with Peer Assess Pro’

Example Peer Assessment Participants CSV File

id

first

last

email

team

group_code

AMTO01

Amanda

Tolley

Amanda.Tolley@noreply.com

Bear

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

ANWO08

Anna

Worth

Anna.Worth@noreply.com

Bear

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

HOBR03

Holly

Brown

Holly.Brown@noreply.com

Bear

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

ALJO11

Alice

Jones

Alice.Jones@noreply.com

Panda

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

GRGR15

Greta

Green

Greta.Green@noreply.com

Panda

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

JEWA06

Jeff

Wang

Jeff.Wang@noreply.com

Panda

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

BOWI12

Bob

Wilson

Bob.Wilson@noreply.com

Tiger

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

HEJO19

Henry

Jones

Henry.Jones@noreply.com

Tiger

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

JOSM13

John

Smith

John.Smith@noreply.com

Tiger

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

>>> Download example CSV,  EXCEL,  or Google Sheet

Example Survey Questions for a Team Member

Most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

FAQ - Show me a quick video overview demonstration of the whole Peer Assess Pro system

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

FAQ - How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?

FAQ - What is the purpose of peer assessment?

FAQ - What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ - View the comprehensive ‘Get Started with Peer Assess Pro’ online eBook

>>> More FAQs at www.peerassesspro.com/frequently-asked-questions-2 


Quick Link Map

Everyone

For teachers

For team members

Xorro-Q help

Login to Xorro-Q

Join peer assessment activity

www.peerassesspro.com

The peer assessment survey

The purpose of peer assessment

Reference guide

Login and orientation

Undertake the peer assessment

FAQs on the web at http://tinyurl.com/papFAQ

Launch peer assessment activity

Use peer assessment results for better performance

Videos

Manage the peer assessment activity

Quickstart guide for teachers

Definitions, calculations, and examples

Contact us

eBook - 7step guide

Support, Feedback and Contact

Ask us for help, give us feedback, and request additional features.

                https://www.peerassesspro.com/contact-us/

Patrick Dodd         patrick@peerassesspro.com +64 21 183 6315

Peter Mellalieu        peter@peerassesspro.com         +64 21 42 0118 Skype myndsurfer

The Seven-Step Formula for Effective Peer Assessment

 

Download interactive poster https://www.peerassesspro.com/infographic/

Complimentary eBook

Mellalieu, P. J. (2020). How to teach using group assignments: The 7-step formula for fair and effective team assessment. Peer Assess Pro. https://www.peerassesspro.com/ebook

Teachers Process Flowchart: Overview

>>> Hyperlinked chart at http://tinyurl.com/papChart

PEER ASSESS PRO REFERENCE GUIDE

QUICK START GUIDE        1

Example Peer Assessment Participants CSV File        2

Example Survey Questions for a Team Member        3

Most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)        3

Quick Link Map        4

Support, Feedback and Contact        4

The Seven-Step Formula for Effective Peer Assessment        5

Complimentary eBook        5

Teachers Process Flowchart: Overview        6

PEER ASSESS PRO REFERENCE GUIDE        7

1. Login to your Xorro HOME page        20

1.1 First time users: Register        21

Register a new Xorro Teacher’s Account as a Free Facilitator        21

Getting started with Xorro Q        21

1.2 Login from your registered Xorro Account        22

1.3 Orient yourself to the Xorro HOME Dashboard        23

1.4 Orient yourself to the Peer Assess Pro platform        25

Fast video flyby        25

Review the Peer Assess Pro facilitators dashboard        26

Overview of the steps required to launch a peer assessment        27

1.5 Peer Assess Pro system flowchart detail        28

2. Launch Peer Assessment activity        29

2.1 Quick start launch        30

Participants CSV templates        30

2.2 Create the peer assessment Participants CSV        31

Alternative Participants CSV templates        31

Instructions and column explanations for the peer assessment Participants CSV        32

Requirements for a peer assessment Participants CSV file        34

Create a CSV version of your Participants CSV file        34

Why won’t Xorro load my Participants CSV file?        35

Your spreadsheet editor will typically NOT create a CSV file, unless...        35

Good practice hint: Create distinctive group codes for every peer assessment activity you launch        35

Large, multi-cohort streams in a class        36

Here There Be Dragons!        36

2.3 Launch and create the peer assessment activity        37

Select ACTIVITIES from the top menu bar        37

Launch Peer Assessment        38

Good practice hint: Avoid using the Xorro default Due Date        38

The Due Date date is advisory only        39

Initiate Create Activity        39

Point of no return!        39

View the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard        40

Invite team members to respond and other automated activities        41

2.4 Use a Teamset Group to launch a peer assessment        44

From the Xorro HOME page select the PARTICIPANTS page        44

Select ‘Import Participants’        44

Browse to your Team Members Group CSV file        45

Load, check and confirm correct team membership, then Import        45

Check class and team membership        46

3. Manage the Peer Assessment Activity        48

3.1 Action responses to warnings        49

Adjusting team composition        50

Note: Changes to a Xorro Group have NO EFFECT on current Team Composition        51

3.2 Automated and manual notifications        51

3.3 Enter Team Results        51

3.4 Select the Personal Result Calculation Method        53

3.5 Review class, team, and individual statistics        54

Review Class Results        54

Good practice hint: How to identify at risk students        55

The Individual Personal Snapshot        55

Four possible views of the Individual Personal Snapshot        58

Team Statistics        60

Qualitative Feedback        61

Teacher’s Feedback        61

Advanced Statistics        62

3.6 Publish provisional Personal Results to team members        63

Unpublished status        63

Published status        64

Results hidden when insufficient responses        64

4. Finalise the peer assessment activity        66

4.1 Why Finalise?        67

4.2 Publish Finalised Results to students        67

4.3 Download Teacher’s Gradebook of Results        68

4.4 Finalise the Activity … irrevocably!        69

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS        70

Quick Link Map        70

FAQs for teachers        71

The peer assessment survey        71

Login and orientation        71

Launch peer assessment activity        72

Manage the peer assessment activity        72

Responding to Active Warnings        73

Definitions, calculations, and examples        74

Miscellaneous        74

FAQs for team members        76

The purpose of peer assessment        76

Undertaking the peer assessment        76

Using the results from peer assessment for better performance        77

How peer assessment affects personal results        77

FAQ: What is the purpose of peer assessment?        79

Defining peer assessment        79

Developmental feedback        79

Determination of course personal result        79

Criteria for peer assessment in Peer Assess Pro™        80

Peer Assess Pro assesses competencies valued by employers        80

Video        81

FAQ: When and how is the peer assessment conducted?        83

Formative assessment: optional but valuable        83

No surprises!        84

FAQ: How do I provide useful feedback to my team members?        86

FAQ: I believe I have been unfairly treated by the results of the peer assessment. How do I address my concern?        88

Symptoms of an unfair assessment        88

Steps to address an unfair peer assessment        88

A note on appealing a peer assessment result        89

Prevention is better than cure        90

FAQ: How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?        92

FAQ: I don’t understand what my teammates are trying to tell me. How do I ask for better feedback?        93

FAQ: What steps can I take to get a better personal result?        94

Raise your Team Result        94

Use your institution’s academic support services        94

Raise your Peer Assessed Score        95

How do I address proactively the challenges of team work?        95

Learning constructively from mid-course peer assessment feedback        96

FAQ: What happens if I try to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?        98

The tricks we know!        98

Examples: Highly specific and individualized information        99

1. Low quality assessor rating        99

2. Low quality team rating        99

3. Outlier individual rating        100

4. Mismatched self-assessment        100

5. At risk team member        101

Example: Better feedback. Better teams        101

Which teams will raise the Active Warning: Low quality team rating?        102

Which teams tend to have a higher team result?        103

Which teams have worked most productively as a team?        103

Active Warnings, thresholds parameters, and program logic        105

FAQ: Give me a quick overview of how to launch a Peer Assess Pro™ activity through Xorro        106

FAQ: What are the design objectives, key features, and benefits of the Peer Assess Pro development?        108

Design objectives        108

Benefits for students        108

Benefits for teachers        109

Peer Assess Pro™ is a work in progress        109

Where’s the latest?        110

FAQ: How do I find the Peer Assess Pro Xorro Teacher’s dashboard?        111

HOME: Running Activities        111

Alternative method: ACTIVITIES: Running Activities        111

FAQ: How do I navigate the PARTICIPANTS page for Peer Assess Pro?        114

Select PARTICIPANTS Tab        114

Orientation note: Select an existing Group        115

Inactive functions in PARTICIPANTS page        116

FAQ: How do I correct the team composition in a running peer assessment activity?        117

Adjust the team composition in a running peer assessment activity on an LMS        118

Take care! Here there be dragons!!        118

Overview        118

What happens with Synchronise All?        119

Precautions before Synchronise All!        120

Some survey responses might be deleted!        120

Team composition view prior to synchronise all        121

Team composition following synchronise all        122

Survey notifications        122

Adding orphan teams to a running activity        123

Why was my Synchronise All action rejected?        123

Good practice hint when creating a peer assessment activity        123

LMS team arrangement facilities for Moodle        124

Adjust the team composition in a running peer assessment activity on Xorro        125

Take care! Here there be dragons!!        125

Key check points        125

View the team composition        126

Correct the team composition        126

Subtle technical note        127

FAQ: Can I create a peer assessment activity without having all my teams correctly identified by team name and/or team membership?        128

FAQ: How do I create a CSV file from a Google Sheet?        129

Good practice hint!        129

Sample of participants csv file opened using a text editor        130

FAQ: How do I view a demonstration version of Peer Assess Pro?        131

FAQ: How do I correct the participants (team members) in a group already uploaded to Xorro?        132

Update a group’s team members for future use        132

Correct the team members associated with an existing Xorro TeamSet Group        133

FAQ: Where may I view the most recent version of the user guides?        135

Quickstart Guide        135

Video guides        135

Latest reference guide        135

Work in progress Google DOCS development version        135

Frequently Asked Questions for teachers and team members        136

Teachers Process Flowchart        136

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity        137

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?        143

Calculation methods that exclude a team result        144

Calculation methods that incorporate a team result from team outputs        144

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?        145

Automated communications to students        145

Standard operating mode        145

Alternative mode for student access to assessment and results        146

FAQ: How do I view and experience what the students experience?        147

View your student’s personal results feedback report directly from your Teacher’s Dashboard        147

View your students’ experience of the Peer Assess Pro™ survey        147

Enter your Participants’ URL into your browser        148

Select the activity you wish to experience        149

Login in using the Identification (id) of a student in the Team List Group used to create the activity        149

View a survey ready and waiting for responses        150

View a sample question        150

View a student’s published results        151

View the peer assessment survey for a demonstration class        153

FAQ: Why are different terms used to display peer assessment results in the Xorro and previous Google versions of Peer Assess Pro™?        154

FAQ: How do I take action on the Warnings presented in the Peer Assess Pro™ Teacher’s Dashboard?’ What if I ignore the Warnings?        155

Critical and catastrophic warnings!        155

Important warnings        155

Informational warnings        156

Optional emails generated for team members        156

FAQ: When, why, and how do I Refresh and Update Results?        157

When to recalculate        157

Why recalculate?        157

How to recalculate        158

FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?        159

Example Peer Assessment Survey: Quantitative        160

Example Peer Assessment Survey: Qualitative        161

FAQ: Why FINALISE a survey?        162

Best practice before FINALISE SURVEY        162

Download Teacher’s Gradebook of Results        165

Finalise the Survey … irrevocably!        166

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?        167

The self-assessment is excluded from calculating PA Score        167

Mathematical definition of Peer Assessed Score, PA Score        168

Example calculations of Peer Assessed Score        171

Alternative mathematical formulations of PA Score        173

Calculation from Average Rating        173

Calculation from Average Team and Leadership Contributions        174

FAQ: How is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?        175

Spider chart of individual and averaged team peer ratings        175

Index of Realistic Self-Assessment (IRSA)        176

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) calculated?        177

Mathematical definition of Peer Assessed Index        177

Example calculations of Peer Assessed Index        178

FAQ: How is the Indexed Personal Result (IPR) calculated?        180

Mathematical definition of Indexed Personal Result        180

Example calculations of Indexed Personal Result        181

FAQ: How is the Normalised Personal Result (NPR) calculated?        183

Mathematical definition of Normalised Personal Result        184

Example calculations of Normalised Personal Result        185

Impact of adjusting the Spread Factor on Normalised Personal result        187

FAQ: How is the Rank-Based Personal Result (RPR) calculated?        189

Mathematical definition of Rank-Based Personal Result        190

Example calculations of Rank-Based Personal Result        191

Example calculation with tied ranks        194

Adjusting the range using a spread factor        194

Example calculation with spread factor        195

FAQ: How is the Rank Based Personal Result (RPR) calculated (Pre-2022)?        197

Mathematical definition of Rank-Based Personal Result        198

Example calculations of Rank-Based Personal Result        199

Example calculation with tied ranks        201

FAQ: How is Standard Peer Assessed Score (SPAS) calculated?        202

Design features of Standard Peer Assessed Score        203

Mathematical calculation        204

Example calculations of Standard Peer Assessed Score        206

Example charts for Standard Peer Assessed Score        209

Assumptions about Standard Peer Assessed Score        210

The impact of gaming peer assessment        211

FAQ: What is the influence on Standard Peer Assessed Score (SPAS) if a team rates ALL its members with a Peer Assessed Score of 100?        212

FAQ: Would a student receive the same Standard Peer Assessed Score (SPAS) if rated in another class?        212

FAQ: What is Employability? How is it  calculated?        214

Mathematical calculation of Employability        214

Conditioning transformations to de-emphasise unsubstantiated precision        215

Example calculations of Employability        215

FAQ: How is the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA) calculated?        218

Mathematical definition of the Index of Realistic Self Assessment        218

Example calculations of the Index of Realistic Self Assessment        219

Why an IRSA of 100 is not a perfect score!        220

FAQ: How do I interpret measures of realistic self-assessment?        222

Interpreting the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA)        222

Typical IRSA        222

Overconfident IRSA        222

Underconfident IRSA        223

Developing an exceptionally realistic self-image, ERSA        223

What are the benefits of having an Exceptionally Realistic Self Assessment?        223

What can get in the way of having an Exceptionally Realistic Self-Image?        223

How do I develop my Exceptionally Realistic Self-Image, ERSI?        224

FAQ:  How is insignificant intra-team agreement identified? WARNING 0041        226

Illustration of principle        226

Warning detail        227

Accounting for tied ratings and low-quality assessments        228

A team where all team members rate everyone the same        228

Recommended action        229

Award the same personal result        229

Special cases        230

The same personal result awarded updates according to teacher’s adjustments to team result or result method        230

‘Award the same personal result’ status is deactivated automatically        231

‘Exclude from calculations’ overrides actions that address insignificant team agreement        232

Defining concordance        232

Interpreting the concordance value, W        233

Exclusion of self-assessment ratings        233

Tied rankings        233

Where everyone is equally average        234

Significance of the concordance statistic        234

Requirement for calculating concordance        235

Team discrimination table shows class concordance statistics        235

Example calculations        237

Example A. High rating agreement amongst the team members        237

Ex A. Calculation of Concordance, W, from ranks        239

Conclusion for Example A        240

Example B. Low agreement amongst the team members        240

Conclusion for Example B        241

Example C. Teammates show low discernment by submitting tied ranks        242

A note on computational efficiency        244

FAQ: How is an outlier peer assessment rating identified? WARNING 0042        247

Warning detail        247

Failure to agree across the whole team        247

Example calculations        248

Threshold for warning of outlier individual peer rating        249

Alternative mathematical calculation of Assessor Impact        250

Alternative example calculations        250

FAQ: What is a mismatched self-assessment (IRSA)? WARNING 0040        252

Warning detail        252

Threshold for warning of mismatched self-assessment        253

Example calculations        253

Recommended action for facilitator        254

FAQ: What is an adjusted team arrangement request? WARNING 0006        255

Warning detail        255

Available actions        255

Special cases        258

Reassign a new participant to an existing or new team        258

FAQ: What is an inactive team member? WARNING 0048        260

Warning detail        260

Available actions        260

Good practice for addressing an alleged inactive student        261

Special cases        262

Reassigning a student to a new ‘team of one’        262

Exclude from calculations overrides actions that address insignificant team agreement        262

Example of exclusion from calculations        263

Impact of exclusion from calculations        266

FAQ: What is a low-quality team rating? WARNING 0050        267

Warning detail        267

Threshold for warning of low-quality team rating        268

Example calculations        268

Recommended action for facilitator        269

High performing teams        269

Example case        270

Active Warning 0050 Under development        271

Warning detail        271

Threshold for warning of low-quality team rating        272

Example calculations        272

Recommended action for facilitator        273

High-performing teams        273

Example case        274

FAQ: What is a low-quality assessor rating? WARNING 0300        275

Warning detail        275

Threshold for warning of low quality assessor rating        275

Example calculations        276

Recommended action for facilitator        277

High performing teams        277

FAQ: What is a valid assessed team? WARNING 0022        278

Warning detail        278

Results not displayed to members of non-valid assessed teams        278

How many valid and invalid teams do I have?        279

Recommended action for facilitator        279

Mathematical definition        279

Example calculations        280

FAQ: What is an ‘at-risk’ team member? WARNING 0036        281

Warning detail        281

Recommended action for facilitator        282

Threshold for warning of ‘at-risk’ team member        282

Example calculation        284

Alternative approaches to identifying at-risk students        287

FAQ: What is a team with low psychological safety? WARNING 0034        291

Warning detail        291

Definitions        291

Example calculation for Team Safety        293

Recommended action for facilitator        294

FAQ: What is an unsafe team member? WARNING 0035        296

Warning detail        296

Recommended action for facilitator        297

Limitations        297

FAQ - What emails have been sent by the platform?        299

Survey notifications history        299

Track-and-trace of emails to participants        299

FAQ: What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro to Participants?        302

Preview email from Active Warnings        302

Preview all emails available for sending        302

Table of email subjects sent to participants        304

Table of email body text sent to participants, listed by Email ID and Subject        306

FAQ: What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro to Facilitators?        316

Table of email subjects sent to facilitators        317

Table of email body text sent to facilitators, listed by Email ID and Subject        318

FAQ: How do I login to my peer assessment Activity URL        326

Activity URL        326

Participant URL        326

Successful login through Activity URL        327

FAQ: I am unable to login. My login failed        329

Investigation and remedies for login failure        329

1. You entered your ID incorrectly.        329

2. Your teacher or facilitator has entered your ID incorrectly        330

3. The Xorro Activity related to the Activity URL has not yet reached its Start Date        330

4. The Xorro Activity related to the Activity URL has been Finalised and Finished.        331

5. The Xorro Activity related to the Activity URL has been Abandoned        332

6. The institution manager for Xorro has not maintained payment of the subscription to use Xorro and/or Peer Assess Pro        332

7. An exceptional system fault has occurred with the Xorro participants database entry for your ID: duplicate identical ids        333

FAQ: Can I adjust the Start Date or Due Date for a running activity?        335

Adjusting the Start Date        335

Adjusting the Due Date        335

The good news: The Due Date date is advisory only        336

Advise students of your extended deadline        336

Worst case scenario: Abandon the peer assessment        336

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv        339

What are the common problems when importing a participants file?        339

Is my Participants CSV in the correct format for launching a peer assessment activity?        341

Sample of participants csv file opened using a text editor        341

Sorted Participants CSV viewed in Google Sheets        342

Extra for experts        343

Key points!        344

Error notifications upon upload of a participants CSV to a peer assessment        344

Examples of error notifications upon upload of a participants CSV to a peer assessment        345

Good practice hint!        345

Comprehensive list of potential errors when attempting to import participants csv        346

Potential errors in a participants csv        346

About Comma-separated values (CSV)        348

FAQ - Problems editing and creating participants CSV files        350

Trouble opening csv files with Excel due to regional settings        350

Explanation        351

Workaround solution        351

Solution 1: Use a simple text editor to find and replace semicolons with commas        351

Illustration using Mac TextEdit        351

Solution 2: Adjust Language and Region to use point as decimal marker        355

Illustration using Mac OS on an Apple computer        355

FAQ - How do I fix an invalid, missing or failed email delivery? WARNING 0026        359

Corrective action: avoid these emails        359

Corrective action: use these emails        360

FAQ - How do I resolve an unsynchronised team arrangement? ACTIVE WARNING 0021        362

Corrective Action        363

What is a team arrangement?        363

Synchronise all team arrangements        364

Here there be dragons!        365

Postpone        366

An example scenario        366

One week later        367

Alert to unsynchronised team arrangement        367

Unsynchronised Team Composition        368

Teacher’s actions        369

Before synchronisation        369

Successful synchronisation of the corrected team arrangement        370

FAQ - What is the benefit of a standardized peer assessment rubric?        373

FAQ - What if a student mistakenly advises they are in an incorrect team?        375

Team membership confirmation by student        375

Mistaken team membership notification        376

CONTACT US        378

1. Login to your Xorro HOME page


1.1 First time users: Register

Register a new Xorro Teacher’s Account as a Free Facilitator

Sign up as a Free Facilitator to trial the use of Peer Assess Pro using the Xorro-Q interface:

Sign up as a Free Facilitator 

https://www.xorro.com/free_accounts/pap/new

Getting started with Xorro Q

For related information relevant to registering as a new facilitator:

Getting Started with Xorro Q

For further details contact Patrick Dodd at the offices of Peer Assess Pro.


1.2 Login from your registered Xorro Account

After you login, The your  Xorro HOME Dashboard  page shows will display, as shown in Section 1.3 Orient yourself to the Xorro HOME Dashboard

Now proceed to follow the steps in the Quickstart Guide, or the detailed explanations in Section 2. Launch Peer Assessment Activity

Quick links and related information

VIDEO: Login and orientation 

View: Quick Start Guide

Section 1.3 Orient yourself to the Xorro HOME Dashboard

FAQ: How do I find the the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard?


1.3 Orient yourself to the Xorro HOME Dashboard

Your  Xorro HOME Dashboard  page shows

Quick links and related information

VIDEO: Login and orientation 

View: Quick Start Guide

FAQ: How do I find the the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard?

Peer Assess Pro system flowchart detail

Peer Assess Pro system flowchart detail http://tinyurl.com/papChart

Each process box in the flowchart pdf version of the flowchart links directly to the specific page in this Reference Guide that explains that step in the process.


1.4 Orient yourself to the Peer Assess Pro platform

Fast video flyby

View this short video illustrating many of the features, benefits, and processes involved in using the Peer Assess Pro platform (6 minutes).

http://tinyurl.com/digitalFlyBy


Review the Peer Assess Pro facilitators dashboard

These are the key features of the Facilitators Dashboard accessed through the Xorro ACTIVITIES tab when you have launched a peer assessment activity.

Overview of the steps required to launch a peer assessment


1.5 Peer Assess Pro system flowchart detail

PDF with hyperlinks at Xorro  Peer Assess ProTM Teachers Process Flowchart http://tinyurl.com/papChart

2. Launch Peer Assessment activity


2.1 Quick start launch

Create a file containing your class list that shows every team member organised into their teams. The required file format is Comma Separated Variables (CSV). This is your Participants CSV file. A sample of the file format is shown in Section 2.2 Create the peer assessment Participants CSV file

Use any of these following templates to adapt and create your Participants CSV file using your preferred editor.

After editing the template, remember to create a CSV file type using  SAVE AS CSV, DOWNLOAD AS CSV or EXPORT AS CSV, depending on your spreadsheet editor.

Participants CSV templates

Excel sheet

Google Sheet

CSV file

For a registered Xorro user, use this link to launch a new peer assessment activity. You will be presented with an option to import directly your Participants CSV.

https://qf.xorro.com/pap/launches/new

If your CSV refuses to load, or the activity fails to create, review the detailed steps in the next sections to ensure your CSV is specified correctly.

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

Check carefully that the specifications detailed in the INSTRUCTIONS and COLUMN EXPLANATIONS presented within the sample.csv template are followed strictly.


2.2 Create the peer assessment Participants CSV

Use a spreadsheet editor, such as Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers to produce a file that contains columns of data with these column headers id, first, last, email, team, and group_code. Precise INSTRUCTIONS and COLUMN EXPLANATIONS for each of these data are detailed below.

Alternative Participants CSV templates

Use any of these templates to adapt and create your Participants CSV (comma separated variables file) using your preferred editor. The templates contain the example data and instructions shown below.

CSV file

Excel sheet

Google Sheet

In the sample files, only the group BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM is a valid teamset suitable for processing by Peer Assess Pro. This is the only group that specifies membership of teams by the students in the class, the teams being Panda, Bear and Tiger.

Sample peer assessment Participants CSV

id

first

last

email

team

group_code

ANWO08

Anna

Worth

ARTS123.204/WShak/2021-02-28

GRGR15

Greta

Green

ARTS123.204/WShak/2021-02-28

AMTO01

Amanda

Tolley

Amanda.Tolley@noreply.com

Bear

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

ANWO08

Anna

Worth

Anna.Worth@noreply.com

Bear

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

HOBR03

Holly

Brown

Holly.Brown@noreply.com

Bear

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

ALJO11

Alice

Jones

Alice.Jones@noreply.com

Panda

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

GRGR15

Greta

Green

Greta.Green@noreply.com

Panda

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

JEWA06

Jeff

Wang

Jeff.Wang@noreply.com

Panda

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

BOWI12

Bob

Wilson

Bob.Wilson@noreply.com

Tiger

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

HEJO19

Henry

Jones

Henry.Jones@noreply.com

Tiger

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

JOSM13

John

Smith

John.Smith@noreply.com

Tiger

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

THWI18

Thomas

Windsor

Thomas.Windsor@noreply.com

Tiger

BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

ANWO08

Anna

Worth

Anna.Worth@noreply.com

COMP123.201/PDod/TutA/2020-10-01

HOBR03

Holly

Brown

Holly.Brown@noreply.com

COMP123.201/PDod/TutA/2020-10-01

JOSM13

John

Smith

John.Smith@noreply.com

COMP123.201/PDod/TutA/2020-10-01

Instructions and column explanations for the peer assessment Participants CSV

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Organise your participants data into the columns corresponding to those shown in columns A to F, the first 6 columns headed 'id' through 'email'.

You might find it helpful to paste your data from row 17, below the sample data provided in rows 2 through 16.

The sample data provided demonstrates ten unique individuals (ids), organised into three different groups. One group contains a further three teams.

A group might comprise all members of a class, or subdivisons such as streams, cohorts, sections, or tutorial groups.

In the group called BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM the participants are subdivided further into three different teams, Bear, Panda and Tiger.

Only group BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM is a Xorro teamset suitable for a peer assessment activity.

A group is not a team. A group (such as a class) may contain several teams, in which case that's a Xorro teamset.

2. If you are preparing a separate file, ensure you use exactly the same column headers for your list as shown in row 1.

That is, 'id', 'first', 'last', 'email', 'team', 'group_code'.

These headers are not case sensitive.

The sequence of column headings is NOT IMPORTANT.

You may optionally include additional headers and columns of data. This data will be ignored by Xorro.

Data may be sorted by any of the columns.

3. Read carefully the COLUMN EXPLANATIONS, below, for each type of data.

Some data is optional, and can be skipped, as shown for group_code ARTS123.204/WShak/2021-02-28

4. Delete the sample data, immediately below the header row.

That is, delete everything between row 2 and row 16.

CRITICAL: CHECK you do not have duplicate ids in the same group_code.

CHECK you do have all the ids in your class allocated to to a group, and, optionally, a team

5. If you have used this page as your template, you may DELETE this 'instructions' column.

That is, delete anything not part of your data.

Keep the column headers. The headers must be on row 1 of your file.

6. Save (Download, Export, Save As) the file as a CSV, giving it an appropriate filename.

7. From Xorro-Q, browse to PARTICIPANTS, then upload the CSV file.

Alternatively, when you Launch a Peer Assessment Activity, you can IMPORT directly the CSV to create or update the activity.

From this sample file, upon upload three groups would be created in Xorro: ARTS..., BUS.... and COMP....

Only one of the groups is a teamset containing the three teams Bear, Panda, and Tiger.

8. COLUMN EXPLANATIONS

id - Compulsory field.

Identifier for this participant, must be unique for the entire institution.

For a peer assessment activity, this is the participant's login id.

No blanks or characters such as #@$%&*()+

first - Compulsory field.

Participant's first name

last - Compulsory field.

Participant's last name

email - Optional field.

The participant's email.

Ideally required for a peer assessment activity when you require autogenerated warnings and notifications from Peer Assess Pro.

team - Optional field. Required for peer assessment activity.

The name of the team in which the participant is a member.

The participant can be a member of NO MORE than one team within the same group.

A participant may belong to different teams in different groups.

group_code - Optional field. Required for a peer assessment activity.

The code for the group (ie course, class, stream, cohort) into which the participant is being enrolled.

If the participant is in multiple groups, supply a separate line for each group in which the participant is a member.

Good practice. Append to your root code, such as BUS123.101, abbreviations that indicate the teacher, activity date (start or due), subdivision (stream, cohort), summative or formative.

Note that Anna Worth is enrolled in three groups and in one team within group BUS123.101/PMell/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

Requirements for a peer assessment Participants CSV file

Create a CSV version of your Participants CSV file

After editing the template, remember to create a CSV version of  your file. Depending on your editor, the appropriate command is:

FILE… SAVE AS … TEXT CSV

FILE… DOWNLOAD AS … Commas separated values (.csv)

FILE… EXPORT AS CSV

FILE… EXPORT TO… CSV

Why won’t Xorro load my Participants CSV file?

First, see FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

Your spreadsheet editor will typically NOT create a CSV file, unless...

In frequent cases, using the FILE… SAVE command in your spreadsheet editor will produce a file with the incorrect file format, such as .xls, .sheet, or .numbers. 

Xorro will reject those file formats. Xorro accepts and loads only .csv.

Follow this advice

FAQ: How do I create a CSV file from a Google Sheet

Good practice hint: Create distinctive group codes for every peer assessment activity you launch

We advise creating a new, unique group_code for each Xorro Activity you create, even for repeat peer assessments within the same class term or semester.

Use a group_code like this

BT123.101/PJM/2020-03-28/FORM 

We suggest your group_code include these elements as per the example above:

We recommend your resulting group_code should distinguish uniquely this semester’s mid-semester formative peer assessment(s) from last semester’s end of class summative where, perhaps, the same institutional class code could have a different set of student names.

The group_code is specified in the Participants CSV file you import prior to launching a Peer Assess Pro™ Activity.

Large, multi-cohort streams in a class

In the general case, a very large class could comprise several cohorts, streams or tutorial sets, each subclass containing several teams conducting one or more peer assessment activities. Consequently, your group_code should help distinguish these separate peer assessment activities. For example,

BT123.101/PJM/TutB/2020-05-28/SUM

Here There Be Dragons! 

Consider two teachers at the same institution teaching the same course but with different tutorial groups. If they use the same goup_code, such as BT101, they will load their own team sets into the same Xorro Participants’ Group, additively, thereby causing mutual confusion and dismay. Similarly, a teacher using the same group_code from term to term, semester to semester, and year to year will experience similar grief.

Quick links and related information

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

FAQ: How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?

FAQ: How do I correct the participants (team members) in a group I uploaded?

FAQ: How do I create a CSV file from a Google Sheet


2.3 Launch and create the peer assessment activity

In summary

Select ACTIVITIES from the top menu bar


Launch Peer Assessment

Enter the following details, in this sequence

Good practice hint: Avoid using the Xorro default Due Date

Set a realistic Due Date that is your target for when you expect and want most students to have completed the peer assessment. In practice, typical Due Dates are set to within four days to seven days beyond the Start Date.

The Due Date is used by Peer Assess Pro to generate automatically:

If you use the Xorro default Due Date, which currently is NOW, the Start Date, you will not receive the benefits of the automated processes conducted by Peer Assess Pro that are triggered by a practical Due Date.

The Due Date date is advisory only

The ‘Due Date’ date is advisory only. Students can CONTINUE to submit responses beyond the Due Date UNTIL the teacher Finalises the activity. After the Finalisation Date, the students will have no more than two weeks to review their results.

FAQ: How do I adjust the Due Date or deadline?

The short answer is ‘You can’t adjust the Due Date!’ You don’t need to!

Initiate Create Activity

After setting the Start At and Due Dates, select  Create Activity .

Point of no return!

Double check your Start Date and Due Date carefully!

Once you   Create Activity   you cannot adjust the Start Date. The peer assessment Survey and the Email notifications to students requesting their response are created when the Start Date is reached. Furthermore, the email advises the students the Start Date and Due Date.

Therefore, an adjustment to the Start Date would confuse the students as the Participant Activity URLs would be announced to students. Those Activity URLs could become unavailable to the students if dates were adjustable.

For a similar reason, you cannot adjust the Due Date. However, the ‘Due Date’ date is advisory only. Students can CONTINUE to submit responses beyond the Due Date UNTIL the teacher Finalises the activity.

FAQ: Can I adjust the Start Date or Due Date for a running activity?

In short, No!

In a ‘worst case scenario’ you can abandon the activity and launch a new activity. Review the foregoing FAQ for details on how to Abandon a running Peer Assess Pro activity.

View the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard

Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s Dashboard

Invite team members to respond and other automated activities

When the Start Date occurs, Peer Assess Pro automates several activities:

A unique peer assessment survey is created for every team and team member


Quick links and related information

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

FAQ: How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?

FAQ: Can I adjust the Start Date or Due Date for a running activity?

FAQ: How do I view a list of the participants (team members) in the group I uploaded?

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

FAQ: How do I view and experience what the students experience?

FAQ: How do I find the the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard?


2.4 Use a Teamset Group to launch a peer assessment

This is an alternative approach to launching a peer assessment activity. This is a two stage process where you can

From the Xorro HOME page select the PARTICIPANTS page

(Image to come)

Select ‘Import Participants’

This uploads your Participants CSV within which you have classified your students into teams, as detailed in Section 2.2 Create the peer assessment Participants CSV file

Note that multiple teamset groups may be created using this import process. This is potentially useful for managing peer assessment in large, multi-stream  classes.

Browse to your Team Members Group CSV file

Load, check and confirm correct team membership, then Import

You should see a list of all the students belonging to the class for whom you wish to run the peer assessment activity.

Note: The message ‘Exists’ or ‘Conflict’ means that the id (Identification) code has already been identified within your institution, or a previous Group you have uploaded. Carry on!

Check class and team membership

At this point you are unable to confirm the team membership of your team class. You must first launch a peer assessment activity selecting (one of) the Group Codes that existed within the original Participants CSV.

Quick links and related information

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

FAQ: How do I view a list of the participants (team members) in the group I uploaded?

FAQ: How do I view or change the participants (team members) in a group I uploaded?

FAQ: How do I correct  the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?

FAQ: Can I adjust the Start Date or Due Date for a running activity?

In short, No! Please check carefully your Start Date and Due Dates before you Create Activity.

3. Manage the Peer Assessment Activity


3.1 Action responses to warnings

Active Warnings show when you need to take action to remedy an issue during execution of the peer assessment activity.

In the following example, one member of Team Brazilia has completed the assessment of their four team members. Consequently, a warning is generated for Team Brazilia that the number of responses from the team is insufficient for presenting valid results. In contrast, all four team members of Team Kublas have completed the assessment.

The warnings displayed in this case are

Click through the warning to gain advice on how to remedy the situation. For example, you can remind the students to complete the survey. Emails are automatically generated and sent on your behalf to all or selected students.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro?

FAQ - What emails have been sent by the platform?

Adjusting team composition

Upon commencing the peer assessment survey, team members are asked first to confirm that the team members identified or their team are correct. If not, the student initiates a request notification to the teacher to readjust their team’s membership.

Once the peer assessment activity has been launched, you can modify the team composition as per the following FAQ.

FAQ: How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?

Note: Changes to a Xorro Group have NO EFFECT on current Team Composition

Changes to a Xorro Group will have NO EFFECT on a currently running activity, unless you Finalise then Abandon the activity. Then re-launch a new activity with the revised Group. This is an extreme response, and should not generally be required, if you follow the previous FAQ.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I take action on the Warnings presented in the Peer Assess Pro™ Teacher’s Dashboard?’ What if I ignore the Warnings?

3.2 Automated and manual notifications

Students who have NOT completed the survey are sent an email reminder 72 hours, 24 hours and 12 hours before the Due Date.

Similarly, if a student is required to resubmit a response because a team has been reconstituted, an automatic reminder is sent.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro?

FAQ - What emails have been sent by the platform?

3.3 Enter Team Results

The Team Results for each team must be entered should you intend to select any of these methods to calculate the Personal Result.

After you have entered or revised your Team Results, communicate the Personal Results to your class using Publish or ‘Update’ button.

Team Results are not used to calculate:

Upon entering Team Results, the Peer Assess Pro platform selects automatically the Normalised Personal Result (NPR) method for calculating participants’ Personal result. A Scale Factor of 1.0 is selected.


3.4 Select the Personal Result Calculation Method

The Personal Result Calculation Method calculates the Personal Result you will award to each team member.

When you first enter Team Results, the Peer Assess Pro platform selects automatically the Normalised Personal Result (NPR) method for calculating participants’ Personal result. A Scale Factor of 1.0 is selected.

To adjust the Personal Result Calculation Method and/or adjust the Scale Factor

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?

3.5 Review class, team, and individual statistics

You can explore progress and final results at the class, team, and individual level.

Review Class Results

In the Class Results, select a Bucket Range to identify the specific students lying within the range of a histogram bar chart.

Before reviewing results, see:

FAQ: When, why, and how do I ‘Recalculate Results’?

Example class statistics


In any of the tables, you may

Good practice hint: How to identify at risk students

The Individual Personal Snapshot

The Individual Personal Snapshot enables you to view all data related to one student. The Student View version of the Personal Snapshot shows exactlt the report the student will receive when the teacher Publishes the results of the current Peer Assess Pro activity.

However, the teacher may wish to view how the results will appear to students BEFORE they are Published. Consequently, there are four possible views of an Individual Personal Snapshot. They are variations on the following example. The four views are explained later.

  1. Teacher’s Live View.
  2. Student’ Live View
  3. Student’s Published View.
  4. Teacher’s Published View.


Example Individual Personal Snapshot (1 of 3)


Example Individual Personal Snapshot (2 of 3)


Example Individual Personal Snapshot (3 of 3)

Four possible views of the Individual Personal Snapshot

Note there are four possible views of an Individual Personal Snapshot.

  1. Teacher’s Live View. Shows the feedback the student would view once the current (live) results are Published or Updated. Furthermore, this snapshot includes qualitative feedback in a transparent form where the teacher can view specifically
  1. Student’ Live View. The view not yet made available to the student, but what the student would view once the current results are Published or Updated. This snapshot includes qualitative feedback  ‘who said what’ in anonymised form, just as the student would see the report.
  2. Student’s Published View. The view you may have already Published to the Student, and available for their view. This snapshot includes qualitative feedback  ‘who said what’ in anonymised form, just as the student would see the report
  3. Teacher’s Published View. This view is similar to the view that is Published to the Student, and available for their view. Additionally, like the Teacher’s Live View, this snapshot shows ‘who said what’ and ‘who rated who’.

If the view is not yet Published, the student will see this remark.

Results unpublished

The same message will be also be displayed if the team is not a valid assessed team, even if the results have been Published to the class as a whole.


Team Statistics

Select an individual team to probe the results of its team members. Sort by Peer Assessed Score or Index of Realistic Self Assessment. Then you can quickly review the Individual Personal Snapshot of each team member as part of your diagnosis to identify ‘star performers’ , ‘at risk’ team members, and those with outlier degrees of over confidence or underconfidence.

Example Team Statistics


Qualitative Feedback

(To come)

Teacher’s Feedback

(To come)


Advanced Statistics

There are many advanced statistics and charts you can view. Furthermore, from ‘Available Actions’ you can Download Full Statistics to conduct more detailed investigations beyond the scope of what we have conceived.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How is the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA) calculated?


3.6 Publish provisional Personal Results to team members

Results of the peer assessment are hidden from team members until you initiate Publish Survey on the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard.

Before Publishing, see:

FAQ: When, why, and how do I ‘Recalculate Results’?

Unpublished status


Published status

The foregoing ‘Refresh and Recalculate’ steps provide you with the opportunity to quality review results before publishing and republishing personal results and qualitative peer feedback comments. In short, as the peer assessment activity progresses towards the due date, results ARE NOT automatically updated and made available for viewing by the students.

Take Care! Once an activity is Published, the results can never be unpublished. However, you may re-publish results if new responses are submitted and/or you make adjustments to Team Results, Team Composition, etc. To reiterate, even if interim results have been published to students, as the peer assessment activity continues to progress towards the due date, results ARE NOT automatically updated and made available for viewing by the students.

Results hidden when insufficient responses

Results will be hidden from the teacher and ALL team member in teams where less than one-half of team members have submitted the peer assessment. Peer assessment results are possibly not valid and representative at this stage of the survey activity processing. For small teams, at least 3 team members must have submitted a response. That is, team sizes of 3, 4, 5 and 6 team members require at least three team members to have peer assessed each other. A team of 7 or 8 requires a minimum of 4 responses. Team members who have already submitted a response will ALSO be advised their results are hidden until more of their team members have submitted responses.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

FAQ: How do I view and experience what the students experience?


4. Finalise the peer assessment activity


4.1 Why Finalise?

Survey responses from Team Members are received and available for incorporation into the Peer Assessment activity UNTIL the you explicitly Finalise the Survey. Even responses submitted after the Due Date announced to students, at the launch of the Activity, will be available for incorporation UNTIL the survey is Finalised deliberately by the Teacher. Until Finalisation, you can request a student to reconsider. They will then optionally resubmit their responses.

4.2 Publish Finalised Results to students


4.3 Download Teacher’s Gradebook of Results

From the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s Dashboard, select either

Example Gradebook Summary Statistics

Example Gradebook Full Statistics

4.4 Finalise the Activity … irrevocably!

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Quick Link Map

Everyone

For teachers

For team members

Xorro-Q help

Login to Xorro-Q

Join peer assessment activity

www.peerassesspro.com

The peer assessment survey

The purpose of peer assessment

Table of contents: Reference guide

Login and orientation

Undertake the peer assessment

FAQs on the web at http://tinyurl.com/papFAQ

Launch peer assessment activity

Use peer assessment results for better performance

Videos

Manage the peer assessment activity

Quickstart guide for teachers

Definitions, calculations, and examples

Contact us

eBook - 7step guide


FAQs for teachers

Quickstart Guide for teachers

The peer assessment survey

Login and orientation

Launch peer assessment activity

Manage the peer assessment activity

Responding to Active Warnings

Definitions, calculations, and examples

Miscellaneous

The peer assessment survey

FAQ - What is the benefit of a standardized peer assessment rubric?

FAQ - When and how is the peer assessment conducted?

FAQ - What is the purpose of peer assessment?

FAQ - What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ - How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

FAQ - How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ - Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?

Login and orientation

FAQ - Give me a quick overview of how to launch a Peer Assess Pro™ activity through Xorro 

FAQ - How do I navigate the PARTICIPANTS page for Peer Assess Pro?

FAQ - How do I view and experience what the students experience?

Launch peer assessment activity

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

FAQ - How do I create a CSV file from a Google Sheet?   

FAQ - Can I create a peer assessment activity without having all my teams correctly identified by team name and/or team membership?

FAQ - How do I correct the participants (team members) in a group already uploaded to Xorro?

FAQ - How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results? 

FAQ - Can I adjust the Start Date or Due Date for a running activity?

FAQ - What if a student mistakenly advises they are in an incorrect team?

Manage the peer assessment activity

FAQ - Can I adjust the Start Date or Due Date for a running activity?

FAQ - Why FINALISE a survey?

FAQ - How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?  

FAQ - How do I resolve an unsynchronised team arrangement? (ACTIVE WARNING 0021)

FAQ - What if a student mistakenly advises they are in an incorrect team?

FAQ - What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro to Participants?

FAQ - What is a valid assessed team?

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?

FAQ - When, why, and how do I ‘Update and Recalculate Results’?

FAQ - How do I take action on the Warnings presented in the Peer Assess Pro™ Teacher’s Dashboard?’ What if I ignore the Warnings?

FAQ - What happens if [a student tries] to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?

FAQ - How do I advise a student who feels they have been unfairly treated?

FAQ - What emails have been sent by the platform? (Notifications History)

Responding to Active Warnings

FAQ - How do I take action on the Warnings presented in the Peer Assess Pro™ Teacher’s Dashboard?’ What if I ignore the Warnings?

FAQ: What is an adjusted teamset request? WARNING 0006

FAQ - How do I resolve an unsynchronised team arrangement? ACTIVE WARNING 0021

FAQ -  What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro to Participants?

FAQ -  What is a valid assessed team? WARNING 0022

FAQ -  How do I fix an invalid, missing or failed email delivery? WARNING 0026

FAQ -  What is a team with low psychological safety? WARNING 0034

FAQ -  What is an unsafe team member? WARNING 0035

FAQ -  What is an ‘at risk’ team member? WARNING 0036

FAQ -  What is a mismatched self-assessment (IRSA)? WARNING 0040 

FAQ -   How is insignificant intra-team agreement identified? WARNING 0041

FAQ - How is an outlier peer assessment rating identified? WARNING 0042 

FAQ - What is an inactive team member? WARNING 0048

FAQ -  What is a low-quality team rating? WARNING 0050

FAQ -  What is a low quality assessor rating? WARNING 0300

Definitions, calculations, and examples

FAQ -  How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ - What is the benefit of a standardized peer assessment rubric?

FAQ -  How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

FAQ -  Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?

FAQ -  How is the Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) calculated?

FAQ -  How is the Indexed Personal Result (IPR) calculated?

FAQ -  How is the Normalised Personal Result (NPR) calculated?

FAQ -  How is the Rank Based Personal Result (RPR) calculated?

FAQ -  How is Standard Peer Assessed Score (SPAS) calculated?

FAQ -  What is Employability? How is it calculated?

FAQ -  How is the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA) calculated?

FAQ -  How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?

Miscellaneous

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv

FAQ -  How do I contact people at Peer Assess Pro?

FAQ -  Where may I view the most recent version of the user guides?

FAQ -  Why are different terms used to display peer assessment results in the Xorro and previous Google versions of Peer Assess Pro™?  

FAQ -  What are the design objectives, key features, and benefits of the Peer Assess Pro development? 


FAQs for team members

The purpose of peer assessment

Undertaking the peer assessment

Using peer assessment results for better performance

How peer assessment affects personal results

The purpose of peer assessment

FAQ -  What is the purpose of peer assessment?

FAQ -  How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

Undertaking the peer assessment

FAQ -  What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ -  I am unable to login. My login failed

FAQ -  How do I login to my peer assessment Activity URL

FAQ - What if I mistakenly advise the survey I am in an incorrect team?

FAQ -  When and how is the peer assessment conducted?

FAQ -  How do I provide useful feedback to my team members?

FAQ -  How do I know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

FAQ -  How do I view and experience what the students experience?

FAQ -  Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?

FAQ -  What happens if I try to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?

Using the results from peer assessment for better performance

FAQ -  How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?

FAQ -  How do I interpret measures of realistic self-assessment?

FAQ -  What steps can I take to get a better personal result?

FAQ -  Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?

FAQ -  I don’t understand what my teammates are trying to tell me. How do I ask for better feedback?

FAQ -  I believe I have been unfairly treated by the results of the peer assessment. How do I address my concern?

FAQ -  What is a team with low psychological safety?

FAQ -  What is an unsafe team member?

FAQ -  What is an ‘at risk’ team member?

FAQ -  What is Employability? How is it calculated?

How peer assessment affects personal results

FAQ -  How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ -  Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?

FAQ -  What steps can I take to get a better personal result?

FAQ -  What happens if I try to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?

FAQ -  I believe I have been unfairly treated by the results of the peer assessment. How do I address my concern?


FAQ: What is the purpose of peer assessment?

Defining peer assessment

Peer assessment is an educational activity in which students judge the performance of their peers, typically their teammates. Peer assessment takes several forms including

Developmental feedback

The ability to give and receive constructive feedback is an essential skill for team members, leaders, and managers.

Consequently, your teacher has chosen to use  Peer Assess Pro™  to help you provide developmental feedback to your team members, for both formative and/or summative purposes.

The goal of developmental feedback is to highlight both positive aspects of performance plus areas for performance improvement. The result of feedback is to increase both individual and team performance (Carr, Herman, Keldsen, Miller, & Wakefield, 2005).

Determination of course personal result

Additionally, your teacher may use the quantitative results calculated by Peer Assess Pro™ to determine your Personal Result for the team work conducted by your team. Your Personal Result may contribute to the final (summative) assessment grade you gain for the course in which Peer Assess Pro™ is applied.

In general, your Personal Result is calculated from two factors:

Criteria for peer assessment in Peer Assess Pro™

There are many possible criteria for assessing your contribution to your team’s work. Peer Assess Pro has chosen to place equal weight on two groups of factors based on a well-established instrument devised by  Deacon Carr, Herman, Keldsen, Miller, & Wakefield (2005), Task Accomplishment, and Contribution to Leadership and team processes:

Peer Assess Pro assesses competencies valued by employers

The selection of the criteria used in the Peer Assess Pro is reinforced by the results from a recent survey that asked employers to rate the importance of several competencies they expected to see in new graduates from higher education. The figure shows teamwork, collaboration, professionalism, and oral communications rate amongst the most highly needed Career Readiness’ Competencies (CRCs) sought by employers. All these Career Readiness competencies rate at least as ‘Essential’, with Teamwork and Collaboration rating almost Absolutely Essential (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2018).

Employers rate their essential need for Career Readiness Competencies

Source: National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). (2018). Figure 42, p. 33.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

Video

Mellalieu, P. J. (2021, June 9). Why Peer Assessment? The key to improved group assignments. Better Feedback. Better Teams. https://www.peerassesspro.com/why-peer-assessment/


References

Deacon Carr, S., Herman, E. D., Keldsen, S. Z., Miller, J. G., & Wakefield, P. A. (2005). Peer feedback. In The Team Learning Assistant Workbook. New York: McGraw Hill Irwin.

National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). (2018). Job Outlook 2019. Bethlehem, PA. https://www.naceweb.org/


FAQ: When and how is the peer assessment conducted?

The best practice for conducting peer assessment in an academic course follows several stages.

  1. Introduction. The teacher introduces the team activity and related course assignments
  2. Peer assessment purpose. The teacher explains the role, purpose, and process of peer assessment
  3. The team activity commences
  4. A formative peer assessment is conducted using Peer Assess Pro™ early or mid-way through the team activity.
  5. Team members receive formative feedback generated by Peer Assess Pro™  that indicates their provisional peer assessment rating and (optionally) their indicative end of class personal result. More importantly, they receive qualitative information that provides guidance on what behaviors are required to improve their contribution towards the results the team is seeking.
  6. The team activity continues towards its conclusion. Team members confirm informally with each other that they are correctly applying the more productive behaviours identified through the formative peer assessment.
  7. The team activity concludes. 
  8. The summative peer assessment using Peer Assess Pro™ is conducted at the conclusion of the team activity and/or before the conclusion of the course.

Formative assessment: optional but valuable

The midpoint formative peer assessment is an optional element of peer assessment within the classroom. As a minimum, the formative peer assessment gives the team members experience of the Peer Assess Pro™ mechanism including the questions that will be used to conduct the final, summative peer assessment.

More importantly, the midpoint formative assessment helps ensure that team members have the opportunity to respond proactively to the peer feedback they receive immediately the peer assessment activity concludes. Through undertaking appropriate corrective action mid-way through the course, team members have the opportunity to raise their peer assessment rating, their team’s results, and, therefore, their end of course personal results.

No surprises!

The intention of formative assessment is that, ideally, a team member should face no surprises when they receive their final personal result and peer assessment feedback at  the conclusion of the course. For instance, a free-riders should receive clear feedback that the rest of their team observes they are free-riding. Consequently, the free-rider should learn in a timely manner that they will be penalised at the concluding summative assessment unless they remediate their behaviour. It is equally important that an overachieving student who does most of the work is given timely feedback that they need to learn to involve and engage the other team members in the team’s planning and execution of tasks. The Peer Assess Pro™  survey specifically targets these aspects of leadership and team process contributions. This particular style of overachieving student should be identified through the peer assessment ratings they receive.

To minimise the risk of surprises, it is important, therefore, that the peer assessment you provide to your team members at the midpoint of a team activity is


Quick links and related information

FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ: How do I provide useful feedback to my team members?

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

FAQ: How do I view and experience what the students experience?

FAQ: How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ: Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?


FAQ: How do I provide useful feedback to my team members?

It is essential that the peer assessment a team member provides to their team members through peer assessment is:

Ohland et al (2012) provide a table of Behaviorally Anchored Ratings covering high and low contributions to team effectiveness. The table provides some guidance to team members about how they might give accurate, effective, and productive feedback to their team members through peer assessment.

Examples of high and low contributions to team effectiveness

HIGH

CONTRIBUTION

LOW

  • Does more or higher quality work than expected.
  • Makes important contributions that improve the team's work.
  • Helps to complete the work of teammates who are having difficulty.
  • Completes a fair share of the team's work with acceptable quality.
  • Does not do a fair share of the team's work.
  • Delivers sloppy or incomplete work.
  • Misses deadlines. Is late, unprepared, or absent for team meetings.
  • Does not assist teammates. Quits if the work becomes difficult.
  • Asks for and shows an interest in teammates' ideas and contributions.
  • Improves communication among teammates.
  • Provides encouragement or enthusiasm to the team.
  • Asks teammates for feedback and uses their suggestions to improve.
  • Listens to teammates and respects their contributions.
  • Communicates clearly.
  • Shares information with teammates.
  • Participates fully in team activities.
  • Respects and responds to feedback from teammates.

INTERACTION

  • Interrupts, ignores, bosses, or makes fun of teammates.
  • Takes actions that affect teammates without their input.
  • Does not share information.
  • Complains, makes excuses, or does not interact with teammates.
  • Accepts no help or advice.
  • Watches conditions affecting the team and monitors the team's progress.
  • Makes sure that teammates are making appropriate progress.
  • Gives teammates specific, timely, and constructive feedback.
  • Notices changes that influence the team's success.
  • Knows what everyone on the team should be doing and notices problems.
  • Alerts teammates or suggests solutions when the team's success is threatened.

KEEPING FOCUS

  • Is unaware of whether the team is meeting its goals.
  • Does not pay attention to teammates' progress.
  • Avoids discussing team problems, even when they are obvious.

  • Demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do excellent work.
  • Acquires new knowledge or skills to improve the team's performance.
  • Able to perform the role of any team member if necessary.
  • Has sufficient knowledge, skills, and abilities to contribute to the team's work.
  • Acquires knowledge or skills needed to meet requirements.
  • Able to perform some of the tasks normally done by other team members.

CAPABLE

  • Missing basic qualifications needed to be a member of the team.
  • Unable to perform any of the duties of other team members.
  • Unable or unwilling to develop knowledge or skills to contribute to the team.

Source: Ohland et al., (2012)

Adapted by Mellalieu (2017) from Ohland, M. W., Loughry, M. L., Woehr, D. J., Bullard, L. G., Felder, R. M., Finelli, C. J., … Schmucker, D. G. (2012). APPENDIX B: Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) Version, from Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 11(4), 609–630. Retrieved from http://amle.aom.org/content/11/4/609.short

Quick links and related information

FAQ: I believe I have been unfairly treated by the results of the peer assessment. How do I address my concern?

For teachers: How do I advise a student who feels they have been unfairly treated?

Symptoms of an unfair assessment

Here are some symptoms that you may have been treated unfairly by one or more teammates in their peer assessment of you:

Steps to address an unfair peer assessment

If you believe you may have been unfairly treated, these are the steps you should pursue, in this order of action

  1. Ensure that you understand the results of your peer assessment, and how the results are calculated. See the Quick Links below for suggestions.
  2. Email then arrange to discuss your concerns with your teacher. Your teacher can check the peer assessments provided by your team members. For example, perhaps one or more extreme peer assessments have affected negatively your result. The teacher can explore that possibility with you and the team member concerned. You should be able to present evidence to the teacher of the work you agreed to complete, your record of attending meetings, the work you produced, and relevant communications from your team members expressing their satisfaction or otherwise of your contributions to team outputs and/or working processes.
  3. Meet with your team members to ensure you fully understand WHY they have awarded you the ratings they gave. In particular, ensure you understand accurately what you must do to achieve a better peer assessment rating in the future. In addition, when you meet your teacher in Step 2, you might request the teacher’s attendance at this meeting as a meeting observer or facilitator ‘to keep the peace’.
  4. If there remains a dispute between your self-assessment and your team’s assessment, the teacher MAY with discretion request that one or more of your team members resubmit their peer assessment. This step can only be undertaken if the peer assessment activity is not finalised.
  5. If you continue to dispute your peer assessment and/or personal result then you should pursue your institution’s policy for appealing an assessment result. This policy is usually mentioned in your course syllabus, assignment specification, programme overview, and/or learning management system.

A note on appealing a peer assessment result

An appeal against a peer assessment result is likely to fail if one or more of the following circumstances have prevailed:

Prevention is better than cure

Take these steps to avoid a mismatch between the peer assessment result you expect, and the result you receive.

Quick links and related information

How peer assessment affects personal results

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ: Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?

FAQ: What happens if I try to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?

Using the results from peer assessment for better performance

FAQ: How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?

FAQ: I don’t understand what my teammates are trying to tell me. How do I ask for better feedback?

FAQ: How do I interpret measures of realistic self-assessment?

FAQ: What steps can I take to get a better personal result?


FAQ: How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?

(To be published)

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I interpret measures of realistic self-assessment?


FAQ: I don’t understand what my teammates are trying to tell me. How do I ask for better feedback?

Begin by viewing this video. Watch especially for the question that is introduced soon after minute 15 by Harvard University professor Sheila Heen.

Heen, S. (2015). How to use others’ feedback to learn and grow. TEDx. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQNbaKkYk_Q

As Heen and Stone observe

“Feedback is less likely to set off your emotional triggers if you request it and direct it. So donʼt wait until your annual performance review. Find opportunities to get bite-size pieces of coaching from a variety of people throughout the year. Donʼt invite criticism with a big, unfocused question like “Do you have any feedback for me?” Make the process more manageable by asking a colleague, a boss, or a direct report,

“Whatʼs one thing you see me doing (or failing to do) that holds me back?”

That person may name the first behavior that comes to mind or the most important one on his or her list. Either way, youʼll get concrete information and can tease out more specifics at your own pace.” (Heen & Stone, 2014)

Quick links and related information

Heen, S., & Stone, D. (2014). Find the Coaching in Criticism. Harvard Business Review, 9. Retrieved from https://medschool.duke.edu/sites/medschool.duke.edu/files/field/attachments/find-the-coaching-in-criticism.pdf


FAQ: What steps can I take to get a better personal result?

Your Personal Result is determined from a combination of your Team Result and your Peer Assessed Score. Consequently, to raise your Personal Result you need to apply balanced effort to raising both these contributing factors.

Raise your Team Result

Typically, your Team Result is earned from its assignment outputs, such as a report, and/or a presentation. Consequently, the grade for the Team Result is determined by the teacher, based on the rubric (marking guideline) they apply to assess your team’s outputs. Ensure you understand the assignment elements and how each will be assessed. Seek out exemplars of good practice. Pursue the guidance found in:

Mellalieu, P. (2013, March 15). Creating The A Plus Assignment: A Project Management Approach (Audio). Innovation & chaos ... in search of optimality website: http://pogus.tumblr.com/post/45403052813/this-audio-tutorial-helps-you-plan-out-the-time

Use your institution’s academic support services

In addition to your teacher and their assistant tutors, your academic institution will offer personal and group coaching to guide you on the specific success factors related to the type of assignment you are pursuing. Schedule appointments to make use of these support facilities early in your project. Locate the online resources these coaching support services have curated for your guidance.


Raise your Peer Assessed Score

Group and team projects present special challenges of coordination, motivation, communication and and leadership. These challenges are normal! Furthermore, an essential part of your job as team member is to overcome proactively these challenges as part of your academic learning journey.

As you overcome these challenges you will achieve several benefits directly instrumental in raising your Personal Result:

You will also develop team work and leadership competencies that will both raise your future employability, and your effectiveness in future teamwork, as discussed in:

FAQ: What is the purpose of peer assessment?

How do I address proactively the challenges of team work?

Whilst there are many resources to help address the challenges of team work in academic settings, we suggest you familiarise yourself with these resources early in your team project. Since “Any fool can learn from their own mistakes. It takes genius to learn from the mistakes of others” (Einstein), be proactive rather than foolish in learning effective team working skills from:

Turner, K., Ireland, L., Krenus, B., & Pointon, L. (2011). Collaborative learning: Working in groups. In Essential Academic Skills (2nd ed., pp. 193–217).

Carr, S. D., Herman, E. D., Keldsen, S. Z., Miller, J. G., & Wakefield, P. A. (2005). The Team Learning Assistant Workbook.

Learning constructively from mid-course peer assessment feedback

Good practice peer assessment management by your teacher will provide you with two opportunities for peer assessment and peer feedback through your course, formative and summative.

Your first, mid-course, formative assessment provides you with early advice about your strengths and opportunities for development as perceived by your team members. Make use of this formative feedback at the earliest opportunity as you proceed towards the conclusion of your team work, and your final, summative peer assessment. Usually, this final, summative assessment is where you earn the significant contribution to your course grade from the Personal Result earned from your Peer Assessed Score awarded by your team members.

Consequently, take proactive action following the mid-course formative assessment through referring to:

FAQ: How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?

Maybe you don’t understand or don’t agree with the feedback your teammates are providing. In that case, refer to

FAQ: I don’t understand what my teammates are trying to tell me. How do I ask for better feedback?


Quick links and related information

The purpose of peer assessment

FAQ: What is the purpose of peer assessment?

Undertaking the peer assessment

Using peer assessment results for better performance

How peer assessment affects personal results

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ: What steps can I take to get a better personal result?

FAQ: What happens if I try to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?

FAQ: Is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?


FAQ: What happens if I try to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?

What happens if a team member attempts to 'game' the peer assessment process?

The designers of Peer Assess Pro have many decades’ experience working with students. We know the tricks that students attempt to play with peer assessment. We have anticipated the tricks,  so Peer Assess Pro warns the teacher that a trick may be being played. Furthermore, the teacher receives highly specific and student individualized information about each incident. The teacher may then undertake overt or covert action to address the issue to which they have been alerted. For example, the trick-playing student or team may then receive a request to reconsider and resubmit their peer assessment. In more extreme incidents, the student or team may receive an invitation to visit the teacher for a counselling consultation.

The tricks we know!

Here follow a few of the ‘tricks’ that Peer Assess Pro identifies and warns the teacher about during the survey process. Examples follow later.

  1. Low quality assessor rating: An assessor may have engaged unconstructively with peer assessment. Also known as “I can’t be bothered with this. I’ll give everyone the same rating
  2. Low quality team rating: A team may have engaged unconstructively with peer assessment. Also known as “If we give everyone a high mark, we’ll get a better personal result won’t we?”
  3. Outlier individual rating: A team member has assessed another team member very differently than the other team members. Also known as “This is my friend, I’ll rate her well” or “We’ve never got on well together. Now this is my chance for revenge!
  4. Mismatched self-assessment: A team member's self-assessment is materially different from the peer assessment given by their team. Also known as “If I give myself a high rating, I’ll get a better personal result won’t I?”
  5. At risk team member: A team member has been rated amongst the lowest in class. Also known as “Darn! I thought I could hide under the radar”

Examples: Highly specific and individualized information

Here are some examples of the highly specific and individualized Active Warnings a teacher receives about each incident.

1. Low quality assessor rating

Madison may have engaged unconstructively with peer assessment. High Peer Assessment Scores awarded. Average 100 and low range 3.  Team  Alpha

Ben  may have engaged unconstructively with peer assessment. High Peer Assessment Scores awarded. Average 86 and low range 5.  Team Bravo

This message warns the teacher that the team member has given everyone a near perfect Peer Assessed Score or a similar score (narrow range). Practically, from the student’s point of view they are ‘wasting their votes’. If everyone is scored with the same or similar score then students who have contributed substantially to the team’s result will not be adequately recompensed. Furthermore, if EVERY team member pursued this same approach, then every team member would be awarded the Team Result. In this case, the team member just looks stupid in the eyes of the teacher. Furthermore, the team member fails to gain practice at being a leader where giving accurate assessments of team members’ contributions is a valued management competency.

2. Low quality team rating

Team Bravo  may have engaged unconstructively with peer assessment. High Peer Assessment Scores awarded. Average 98 and low range 8.

Team Echo  may have engaged unconstructively with peer assessment. High Peer Assessment Scores awarded. Average 94 and low range 10.

These messages warns the teacher that the team collectively may have arranged to give everyone a near perfect Peer Assessed Score or the same score. Practically, from the students’ point of view, this trick is a waste of time. If everyone is scored with the same score, or a perfect Peer Assessed Score of 100, then every team member will be awarded the Team Result … which is usually not 100. The team members just look stupid in the eyes of the teacher. Furthermore, they may not receive useful qualitative feedback and ratings that help guide focussed development of their future productivity in team assignments and their future professional work in teams.

3. Outlier individual rating

The warning highlights a situation where the team members appear to be inconsistent in rating high, medium and low contributors to the team’s process and results.

This example is a symptom there maybe some disruptive team dynamics or bullying within the team.

Harrison Ford assessed Steven Spielberg awarding a PA Subscore of 38. Compared with the average rating by the other team members of 70 this subscore DEPRESSED the PA Score to 64 by 7 PA Score Units. Team  Alpha

This message warns the teacher there maybe some favouritism between friends or allies.

Donald Trump assessed Vladimir Putin awarding a PA Subscore of 90. Compared with the average rating by the other team members of 57 this subscore RAISED the PA Score to 64 by 7 PA Score Units. Team  Charlie

4. Mismatched self-assessment

Anna  self-assessment of 68 is OVERCONFIDENT compared with the peer assessment of 34 given by others in team  Charlie.  IRSA = 51

This message warns the teacher that the team member has a very much higher opinion of their performance than is evidenced by the rating provided by their peers. The teacher may request an interview with the student to explore the reasons for this divergence, and how the student can develop a more realistic self-assessment.

Alternatively, the team member may be being scape-goated by the remainder of the team, and that possibility will be discussed with the team member for whom this warning is raised.

5. At risk team member

Anna has been rated amongst the lowest in class. Low Recommendation 2.3 and/or low Peer Assessment Score 34. Team  Alpha

This message warns the teacher that the team member is rated very poorly when compared with most of the class. It’s often a symptom of little or no attendance or contribution by the team member, which the teacher will verify through examining the qualitative feedback provided by the team members. Again, the teacher may request an interview with the student to explore the reasons for this divergence, and how the student can develop a more realistic self-assessment.

Example: Better feedback. Better teams

Examine the following teacher’s dashboard graphic revealing a real class that undertook a peer assessment.


Teachers dashboard: visible identification of teams with low quality team rating

Which teams will raise the Active Warning: Low quality team rating?

Team 1, 14, 13, 2, 7, 5, and 11. Over ½ of the teams in the class!

Observation: This class was poorly briefed on how to make the best use of peer assessment and feedback. With a better briefing, less than 10% of teams will raise this warning.

Which teams tend to have a higher team result?

The lower Team Results are associated with teams that had a low quality team rating. Apart from Team 15, all teams with an adequate quality team rating had a Team Result equal to or greater than the Class median Team Result of 73.3. For example, Team 10 (Team Result 90) through to Team 4 (Team Result 76.7) according to the sort by Range in the foregoing table.

Which teams have worked most productively as a team?

Team 10, with a Team Result of 90 is clearly a high performing team. The moderately low Range of PA Scores (10) across the team suggests IN THIS CASE that everyone contributed relatively equally and effortfully towards a great Team Result. Reminder: The Team Result is awarded by the teacher: it is independent of the Peer Assessed Scores of the team.

However, Team 3 is also a good candidate for being a fair and productive team. They engaged honestly with peer assessment, awarding a high spread of Peer Assessed Scores (Range 18.8) an a team average PA Score (78.3). This team average was not outrageously high, in contrast to teams 1 (100!), 14 (100), 13, 2, 7, 5. Furthermore, Team 3 earned the class median Team Result of 73.3, which appears then allocated according to the peer assessed contribution of the team members. This fair distribution is illustrated in the following graph and table. Team Member Charlie earned the highest Personal Result of 81, whilst Able earned 65.3. Similar reasoning applies to Team 6 to a slightly lesser degree, since the Range is not so wide.

Note from the following graph how teams 14, 5, 13, 1, 2 and 7 are again glaringly identified in the Teachers Dashboard as outlier teams poorly engaged with the peer assessment process: the low vertical spread in the graph. This low vertical spread in the Personal Result (NPR in this case) derives from the low range of Peer Assessed Scores across each team.

With this admittedly small case size, we advance the proposition that ‘Better feedback leads to better teams’. And/Or ‘Better teams give better feedback!’. In conclusion, let’s say Better feedback. Better teams.


Teachers dashboard: a fairly productive team

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What is the purpose of peer assessment?

FAQ: How do I provide useful feedback to my team members?

FAQ: How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?

FAQ: I don’t understand what my teammates are trying to tell me. How do I ask for better feedback?

FAQ: I believe I have been unfairly treated by the results of the peer assessment. How do I address my concern?

Active Warnings, thresholds parameters, and program logic

The following section explains how the teacher should respond to the Active Warnings displayed on their dashboard. The thresholds parameters and program logic for raising the warnings are also provided.

Responding to Active Warnings


FAQ: Give me a quick overview of how to launch a Peer Assess Pro™ activity through Xorro

If this is your first time using Peer Assess Pro, we recommend strongly that you glance briefly our Frequently Asked Questions so you are prepared to answer your own and your students' concerns - https://www.peerassesspro.com/frequently-asked-questions-2/

Download a pdf of the Quickstart Guide and this Reference Guide here - http://tinyurl.com/papRefPdf

View a quick video overview demonstration of the whole Peer Assess Pro system

Contact

Patrick Dodd - https://www.peerassesspro.com/contact/


Quick links and related information

View the web Quickstart Guide at tinyurl.com/pdfQuickWeb

View our comprehensive online and eBook introduction Get Started with Peer Assess Pro

FAQ: How do I contact people at Peer Assess Pro?

FAQ: Where may I view the most recent version of the User Guide?

FAQ: What are the design objectives, key features, and benefits of the Peer Assess Pro development?


FAQ: What are the design objectives, key features, and benefits of the Peer Assess Pro development?

Design objectives

Our overall objectives for Peer Assess Pro™ are

Benefits for students

Benefits for teachers

Peer Assess Pro™ is a work in progress

We appreciate your participation in this pre-market release of our substantially revised Peer Assess Pro™ in conjunction with the Xorro advanced quiz and survey platform.

As we proceed through this pre-market refinement phase we respond almost daily  to your suggestions for improving both the software applications and user documentation. These improvements are implemented at anytime whilst we undergo our Beta Development phase. We anticipate that our implementations are robust enough to prevent loss of your data and wasting your time. We crave your forgiveness if we have been over optimistic in keeping Murphy’s Law at a distance.

Where’s the latest?

You need not take any action to use the latest versions of the Peer Assess Pro™ Xorro Teacher’s Dashboard. Those updates happen in the background and will automatically use any data and activities you have initiated. However, if you use the PDF version of this user guide, you will need to update regularly to the latest version here.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: where may I view the most recent version of the Reference Guide?


FAQ: How do I find the Peer Assess Pro Xorro Teacher’s dashboard?

If you quit your browser then wish to return to the Teachers Dashboard

HOME: Running Activities

Alternative method: ACTIVITIES: Running Activities


From HOME Tab


From Activities Tab: Running Activities

Quick links and related information


FAQ: How do I navigate the PARTICIPANTS page for Peer Assess Pro?

Select PARTICIPANTS Tab

 

Note the list of ‘All participants’ currently known to Xorro in your institution.

Note a list of all other Groups uploaded by other Teachers in your institution. A group is a list of participants, such as students in a class. The minimum requirement for a Group is id, first name, last name.

However, for a peer assessment activity a Group must include team membership for all team members. This team membership is not required for most other Xorro activities. Accordingly, Groups set up for other teachers or by other teachers will rarely contain the correct team membership data required for your Peer Assess Pro™ activity.

Orientation note: Select an existing Group

Select Group ClassAM101.6. This group selection displays  a list of about 25 students in the class titled AM101.6


Inactive functions in PARTICIPANTS page

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I correct the participants (team members) in a group I uploaded?

FAQ: How do I correct  the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?


FAQ: How do I correct the team composition in a running peer assessment activity?

In a launched, running peer assessment activity, you often need need to make these adjustments:

Select the context you require

LMS (Moodle, Canvas) Adjust the team composition in a running peer assessment activity on an LMS

Xorro Adjust the team composition in a running peer assessment activity on Xorro


Adjust the team composition in a running peer assessment activity on an LMS

Context: Peer Assess Pro running on an LMS (Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard)

Take care! Here there be dragons!!

Ensure you read ALL of this FAQ before proceeding.

If you make a mistake in this process the consequence may lead to unrecoverable loss of survey responses received to date.

Overview

In the LMS version of Peer Assess Pro, the facilitator is alerted to requests to adjust the team composition in the running activity from several Active Warnings. These Active Warnings and their associated available actions streamline the facilitator’s workflow for managing adjustments to the team arrangement.

For example, new participants may have been enrolled on the LMS since the peer assessment activity was launched. Additionally, a participant may have alerted the facilitator that team participant(s) (or themself) have been

  1. Assigned into an incorrect team
  2. Withdrawn from the course
  3. An inactive contributor to the team’s project.

The relevant Active Warnings are described in these FAQs

FAQ - What is an adjusted team arrangement request? WARNING 0006

FAQ - What is an inactive team member? WARNING 0048

FAQ - How do I resolve an unsynchronised team arrangement? ACTIVE WARNING 0021

The facilitator responds to the suggested actions presented on the Teachers Dashboard for the relevant Active Warnings to first produce a proposed team arrangement on the LMS side. The facilitator will

  1. Confirm or adjust a request by a participant that another participant(s) (or themself) should be reassigned into another existing team, (in response to WARNING 0006 and WARNING 0048). When the facilitator confirms this request Peer Assess Pro automatically reassigns the participant to the correct team on the LMS, but DOES NOT synchronise the reassignment with the running Peer Assess Pro activity
  2. Apply the standard LMS team arrangement facilities to add, remove, and reassign participants to teams (in response to WARNING 0048) and/or
  3. Apply the standard LMS team arrangement facilities to add, remove or rename teams.

The facilitator now must

  1. Review the proposed changes to the arrangement of participants and/or teams on the LMS. Depending on the LMS in use this proposed team arrangement is termed the LMS grouping, group set, or teamset
  2. Examine carefully the Team Composition shown on the Peer Assess Pro Teacher Dashboard Available Actions. The Team Composition explicitly highlights the differences in team membership that exist between the LMS (proposed arrangement) and the running Peer Assess Pro activity. Since there are differences, Active Warning 0021 Unsynchronised team arrangement will be raised on the Teacher Dashboard
  3. FINALLY, the facilitator initiates Synchronise All, the available action in Active Warning 0021 Unsynchronised team arrangement.

What happens with Synchronise All?

Before the facilitator initiates Synchronise All, the refreshed Team Composition view for the Peer Assess Pro activity will now show the updated team arrangement, Step 5 above.The updated view combines the intentions just-stated by the facilitator on the LMS (the proposed team arrangement), and the current status of the team arrangement within the running activity. The symbols (+, -) signal mismatches, or the lack of synchronisation between the LMS and the current Peer Assess Pro activity.

Precautions before Synchronise All!

Prior to the facilitator committing to synchronisation, the facilitator’s proposed changes are clearly indicated, as the example illustrates. Crucially, this Team Composition view provides a ‘last chance’ opportunity for the facilitator to review carefully the changes they intend.

In the Team Composition view, the symbol (-) signifies that, following synchronisation, a participant would be dropped from a team, or a team deleted from the current peer assessment activity. The symbol (+) indicates that a participant or team will be added.

For example, in the following example, once the facilitator has initiated Synchronise All, Kamryn MILLER will be reassigned from team Black Robins to Team Brown Kiwis. The two teams Black Robins and Brown Kiwis will now include the new class participants Jill ROBERTSON and Jason SMITH. The team Wax Eyes will be added, along with its team members, Kael BRIDGES, Jonathan CHANG, and Kyleigh COHEN.

Some survey responses might be deleted!

Note that any survey responses already generated by Kamryn Miller for team Black Robins will be irretrievably deleted following synchronisation. Similarly, Estrella Hawkins’ responses will be irretrievably deleted..

Team composition view prior to synchronise all

Black Robins

Kamryn MILLER (-), Alexander SAMPSON , Mikaela RAY , Ramon MCKNIGHT, Jill ROBERTSON (+)

Brown Kiwis

Estrella HAWKINS (-), August DAUGHERTY , Nehemiah MCCONNELL,  Kamryn MILLER (+), Jason SMITH (+)

Grey Warblers

Joslyn HOOVER , Alyvia YANG , Mariyah POLLARD , Arianna SCHROEDER

Pukekos

Dorian SULLIVAN, Elisha NUNEZ , Muhammad HOLT , Skylar MCCLURE

Red Rooks < Red Ruru

Alberto UNDERWOOD , Annika KLINE , June MCKINNEY , Jaylee MURRAY

Waxeyes (+)

Kael BRIDGES (+), Jonathan CHANG (+), Kyleigh COHEN (+)

Team composition following synchronise all

Black Robins

Alexander SAMPSON , Mikaela RAY , Ramon MCKNIGHT, Jill ROBERTSON

Brown Kiwis

August DAUGHERTY , Nehemiah MCCONNELL, Kamryn MILLER, Jason SMITH

Grey Warblers

Joslyn HOOVER , Alyvia YANG , Mariyah POLLARD , Arianna SCHROEDER

Pukekos

Dorian SULLIVAN, Elisha NUNEZ , Muhammad HOLT , Skylar MCCLURE

Red Rooks

Alberto UNDERWOOD , Annika KLINE , June MCKINNEY , Jaylee MURRAY

Waxeyes

Kael BRIDGES, Jonathan CHANG, Kyleigh COHEN

Survey notifications

The founding members of teams Black Robins and Brown Kiwis will be alerted by an automated notifications from Peer Assess Pro they must submit an updated survey response for their re-configured teams, as will the relocated Kamryn MILLER. Notification 0013: RESUBMIT peer assessment due to TEAM CHANGE.

The newly-enrolled class members in the new team Waxeyes Kael BRIDGES, Jonathan CHANG, Kyleigh COHEN, Kael BRIDGES, Jonathan CHANG and Kyleigh COHEN will be advised to submit the peer assessment survey. Notification 0011: Request to COMPLETE peer assessment. 

Note that if a founding participant has not yet submitted, they will receive an updated notification to complete the peer assessment, updated to include the new team arrangement, Notification 0011: Request to COMPLETE peer assessment. 

There will be no impact on the survey responses for the participants in teams Grey Warblers and Pukekos.

Adding orphan teams to a running activity

An orphan team is a team that has not been assigned to a teamset (grouping, group set).

Teams that are to be added to the activity must be added to the same teamset (grouping, group set) that was used to create and launch the peer assessment activity. Furthermore, ALL the teams available in the teamset must have been selected for the initial launch.

If the Peer Assess Pro activity was launched using orphan teams, then no additional teams can be added. In this case, participants can only be added to or deleted from teams used to create the initial activity.

Why was my Synchronise All action rejected?

A Synchronise All action will rejected for several reasons when the team arrangement is not feasible.

Good practice hint when creating a peer assessment activity

Before launching a Peer Assess Pro activity always

Quick links and related information

FAQ - What is an adjusted team arrangement request? WARNING 0006

FAQ - What is an inactive team member? WARNING 0048

FAQ - How do I resolve an unsynchronised team arrangement? ACTIVE WARNING 0021

LMS team arrangement facilities for Moodle

Groups—MoodleDocs. https://docs.moodle.org/400/en/Groups

Grouping users—MoodleDocs. https://docs.moodle.org/400/en/Grouping_users

Groupings—MoodleDocs. https://docs.moodle.org/400/en/Groupings

Groups versus groupings—MoodleDocs. https://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Groups_versus_groupings


Adjust the team composition in a running peer assessment activity on Xorro

Context: Peer Assess Pro running on Xorro

Take care! Here there be dragons!!

Ensure you read ALL of this FAQ before proceeding.

If you make a mistake in this process the consequence may lead to unrecoverable, loss of survey responses received to date.

Key check points

View the team composition

Select the ‘Team Composition’ button for the running Peer Assessment Activity for which you wish to adjust the team composition.

Correct the team composition

During the re-import, the changes to the teamset will be presented to you so that you can check and confirm the adjustment process. Take care!

Upon completion of the re-import process, the running Peer Assess Pro Activity will continue.

All students in teams affected by a change in composition are now required to resubmit their peer assessment responses. Reason: They now have different team members to rate. The remaining teams of the class will be unaffected. Their responses remain submitted and evident within Peer Assess Pro.

Affected team members will be notified of their need to re-submit by an automatically generated email from Peer Assess Pro.

Subtle technical note

You cannot change the participants in the Xorro Group used to create the running activity, as explained in the FAQ:

FAQ: How do I correct the participants (team members) in a group already uploaded to Xorro?

Reason: whenever a Xorro activity is created a snapshot is taken of the Group used to create the activity. From that moment this snapshot, known as a Xorro Teamset, is inextricably connected with the activity. That activity-specific teamset can be updated only during a running activity through the FAQ detailed above, through the Team Composition section of the Peer Assess Pro dashboard.

In the image above, the Group used to create the peer assessment activity is BT101. Any changes made to that group WILL NOT affect the running activity. The teamset created from the Group BT101 is denoted 2019-02-24 BT101 by Beta Beta. That name indicates what date the teamset was created, from which Group, and by whom.


FAQ: Can I create a peer assessment activity without having all my teams correctly identified by team name and/or team membership?

You can add, swap or delete delete team members anytime before launching the activity, and anytime before the peer assessment activity is finalised.

Good Practice Hint. Get your team composition list absolutely correct before the activity is launched and made available for response by your students. Reason: All students in teams affected by a change in composition will be required to resubmit their peer assessment responses. The students now have different team members to rate. However, the remaining teams of the class will be unaffected.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?

FAQ: How do I create a CSV file from a Google Sheet?

Good practice hint!

Confirm that the Participants CSV file you created is in the correct format. Open the Participants CSV using a text editor (Apple Textedit, or Microsoft Windows Notepad).

The format should appear as illustrated below. Note that

  1. The first row, containing the column headers must be stated as id, first, last, group_code, team, email. REQUIRED in any order.
  2. The data on each row is separated by the delimiter comma (,). Alternatively, a semicolon (;) may be used. The delimiter is illustrated above in the Sample of participants csv file opened using a text editor.
  3. The definitions and rules for what data may be listed within each of the subsequent rows is explained in Xorro help Importing Participants, Teams and Groups

Sample of participants csv file opened using a text editor

id,first,last,group_code,team,email,

BOWI12,Bob,Wilson,123.101,Tiger,Bob.Wilson@xorroinstitution.com,

ALJO11,Alice,Jones,123.101,Panda,Alice.Jones@xorroinstitution.com,

JOSM13,John,Smith,123.101,Tiger,John.Smith@xorroinstitution.com,

JOSM13,John,Smith,123.202,,John.Smith@xorroinstitution.com,

GRGR15,Greta,Green,123.101,Panda,Greta.Green@xorroinstitution.com,

GRGR15,Greta,Green,123.204,,,

HEJO19,Henry,Jones,123.101,Tiger,Henry.Jones@xorroinstitution.com,

AMTO01,Amanda,Tolley,123.101,Bear,Amanda.Tolley@xorroinstitution.com,

JEWA06,Jeff,Wang,123.101,Panda,Jeff.Wang@xorroinstitution.com,

HOBR03,Holly,Brown,123.101,Bear,Holly.Brown@xorroinstitution.com,

HOBR03,Holly,Brown,123.202,,Holly.Brown@xorroinstitution.com,

THWI18,Thomas,Windsor,123.101,Tiger,Thomas.Windsor@xorroinstitution.com,

ANWO08,Anna,Worth,123.101,Bear,Anna.Worth@xorroinstitution.com,

ANWO08,Anna,Worth,123.202,,Anna.Worth@xorroinstitution.com,

ANWO08,Anna,Worth,123.204,,,

Quick links and related information

FAQ - I’m having problems importing my participants csv


FAQ: How do I view a demonstration version of Peer Assess Pro?

A Beta Test demonstration site has been established with these credentials:

Browse to: https://qf.staging.xorro.com/

Enter: Username BetaTest, Password Secret

This Beta Test User is established for you to view. But don’t touch to hard!

View


FAQ: How do I correct the participants (team members) in a group already uploaded to Xorro?

WARNING! HERE THERE BE DRAGONS!!

If a peer assessment activity is launched and running then you cannot update team membership details in that running activity using the procedure described here!!!  Instead, apply the procedure described here FAQ: How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?

Reason: whenever a Xorro activity is created a snapshot is taken of the Group used when creating the activity. From that moment this snapshot, known as a Xorro Teamset, is inextricably connected with the activity. That activity-specific teamset can only be updated during a running activity through the following FAQ.

Update a group’s team members for future use

  1. On the Xorro Dashboard, Select Participants.
  2. In the Groups column left, select the Group name to view a list of all students in your class (Group).

Correct the team members associated with an existing Xorro TeamSet Group

  1. Recreate the Team Members Group CSV file
  2. Load then import the Team Members file according to Section 2. Launch Peer Assessment Activity
  3. Note that the data loaded from the TeamSet CSV operates according to these rules
  4. If the id does not exist in the Xorro Group then ALL new attributes such as id, team, email, first name, last name will ADD a NEW Record to the Group and institution All Participants records.
  5. If the id exists already in the Xorro Group then altered attributes in the CSV, such as team, email, first name, last name will UPDATE the EXISTING record identified by the id in the Group and All Participants records.
  6. Note that team membership is Group specific.
  7. Caution: If the existing Xorro Group contains an id that is NOT supplied in the new csv file then that id will remain in the Xorro group with its original attributes including team membership. HERE THERE BE DRAGONS! You must explicitly delete these surplus members from the Group.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?


FAQ: Where may I view the most recent version of the user guides?

Quickstart Guide

Quickstart Guide for Peer Assess Pro: Xorro. (2019, March 6). Peer Assess Pro. http://tinyurl.com/pdfQuickWeb

Pdf version: http://tinyurl.com/pdfQuick

Video guides

Login and orientation. (2019). Auckland: Peer Assess Pro.

Launch a Peer Assess Pro Activity. (2019). Auckland: Peer Assess Pro.

Student survey experience. (2019). Auckland: Peer Assess Pro.

Latest reference guide

Peer Assess Pro. (2019, March 5). Manage a Peer Assessment Activity using Xorro: Reference Guide for Teachers. Auckland: Peer Assess Pro

Web version http://tinyurl.com/papRefWeb2

Pdf version http://tinyurl.com/papRefPdf

Work in progress Google DOCS development version

Google Docs version.

Feel welcome to make suggestions or ask questions using the Comment feature of the Google Docs development version. Shows work in progress improvements.

Frequently Asked Questions for teachers and team members

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) (2019). In Manage a Peer Assessment Activity using Xorro: Reference Guide for Teachers [web]. Auckland, New Zealand: Peer Assess Pro. http://tinyurl.com/papFAQ

Teachers Process Flowchart

Peer Assess Pro. (2019). Xorro  Peer Assess ProTM Teachers Process Flowchart: Overview and Detail. http://tinyurl.com/papChart

Quick links and related information


FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity

The choice of calculation method for determining a team member’s personal result is determined by the teacher's preference for compensating more strongly team members who have contributed significantly to their teams, and under-rewarding team members who are peer assessed as weak contributors. The figure illustrates the statistical features, such as team average, range, and standard deviation, associated with each method.

Alternative calculation methods for Personal Result (PR) illustrating effect on team average and spread for a given Team Result

The teacher can select either the Peer Assessed Score (PA Score) or Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) if they wish to exclude a team result in calculating the Personal Result (PR).

More usually, the Peer Assessed Score and Team Result (TR) are combined mathematically to produce a Personal Result. There are three alternative methods. As the figure illustrates, the Indexed Personal Result (IPR) is the least discriminating method, whilst the Rank-Based Personal Result (RPR) is the most discriminating in terms of favouring significant team contributors and penalising weak contributors. Most teachers select the Normalised Personal Result, often with a spread factor of 1.5 to 2.0.

In contrast to the graphical illustration earlier, the following table summarises the example calculations presented through a series of FAQ that present the mathematical definition and example calculations for each method.

Comparison of Personal Results calculated by several methods in a team of four members

ASSESSEE

ASSESSOR

Bridget

Julian

Lydia

Nigella

Mean

Range

Rank Reversed

1

2

4

3

Peer Assessed Score, PA Score

54

74

82

78

75

28

Peer Assessed Index, PA Index

66

90

100

95

88

34

Team Result, TR

50

50

50

50

50

0

Indexed Personal Result, IPR

33

45

50

48

44

17

Normalised Personal Result, NPR

(SpreadFactor = 1)

39

51

56

54

50

17

Normalised Personal Result, NPR

(Spreadfactor = 2)

28

52

62

58

50

34

Rank-Based Personal Result, RBR

20

40

80

60

50

60

Source: FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?


Definitions and features of calculation methods used in Peer Assess Pro

Attribute (X1)

Abbreviation (X1)

Definition (X1)

Peer Assessed Score

PA Score

A relative measure of the degree to which a team member has contributed to their team's overall achievement, team processes, and leadership. The Peer Assessed Score (PA Score) is calculated for each team member directly from their Average Team Contribution (ATC) and Average Leadership Contribution (ALC). That is, from the ten components of Team and Leadership contribution survey in the peer assessment.

A Peer Assessed score is generally used to compare the relative contribution of students WITHIN the same team, rather than BETWEEN teams. The Team Result has NO impact on the value of the Peer Assessed Score. Values for the PA Score range from zero through 100.

Peer Assessed Index

PA Index

The Peer Assessed Score (PA Score) is indexed upwards so that the person in the team with the highest Peer Assessed Score is awarded a Peer Assessed Index of 100. All other team members receive a proportionally lower PA Index in the ratio PA Score / max(PA Score). The Team Result has NO impact on the value of the Peer Assessed Index.

Team Result

TR

The result awarded to the team for the outputs of their work. The teacher typically derives the Team Result (TR) from grades for team reports, presentations, and results of Team Readiness Assurance Tests.

The teacher may select to combine a student's Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) with their team's Team Result (TR) to calculate a Personal Result (PR) for each student, reflecting their relative contribution to the Team Result as assessed by their peer team members. Peer Assess Pro enables the teacher to select from several methods to combine the Team Result and Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) to produce a Personal Result: the Indexed Personal Result (IPR), the Normalised Personal Result (NPR), and the Rank Based Personal Result (RPR).

Measures of a student's personal result

Personal Result

PR

A student's personal result gained from combining their Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) and, optionally, their Team Result (TR).

The teacher selects from one of several Calculation Methods to calculate the Personal Result that incorporates the Team Result. These methods are Indexed Personal Result (IPR), Normalised Personal Result (NPR), and Rank-Based Personal Result (RPR).

The choice of method is determined by the teacher's preference for compensating more strongly students who have contributed significantly to their teams, and under-reward students who are peer assessed as weak contributors. Figure 1 illustrates the statistical features, such as team average, range, and standard deviation, associated with each method. The IPR is the least discriminating method, whilst the RPR is the most discriminating in terms of favouring significant team contributors and penalising weak contributors, as the figure illustrates.

Indexed Personal Result

IPR

The Indexed Personal Result is calculated from the Team Result (TR) combined with the student's specific Peer Assessed Index (PA Index). The Indexed Personal Result method awards the Team Result to the TOP RATED student in the team, since, by definition, their Peer Assessed Index is 100. All remaining students in the same team earn the Team Result downwards, directly proportional to their PA Index.

The Indexed Personal Result calculation means that NO team member can earn an Indexed Personal Result greater than the Team Result. That is, values for the Indexed Personal Result range from zero up to the Team Result.

Normalised Personal Result

NPR

The Normalised Personal Result is calculated from the Team Result combined with the student's specific Indexed Personal Result (IPR). However, in contrast to the IPR method, the Normalised Personal Result method awards the AVERAGE student in the team the Team Result (TR). All remaining students are awarded a Personal Result ABOVE or BELOW the Team Result depending on whether their IPR is above or below that team's average.

Features of the Normalised Personal Result are that (a) In contrast to the IPR method, the Normalised Personal Result method calculates a Personal Result ABOVE the Team Result for the above-average peer rated students in the team (b) The average of the team's Normalised Personal Results matches the Team Result (c) The spread of the team's Normalised Personal Results matches the spread of the Indexed Personal Results (IPR) that is calculated for that team. Spread is measured by the standard deviation statistic. .

Optional feature: To enhance the effect of rewarding high contributors and penalising weak contributors the tutor can increase the Spread Factor (SF) from the default value of 1.0. Increasing the Spread Factor increases the spread of the results centred around the Team Result. However, an increase in the Spread Factor will maintain a team average NPR that matches that team's Team Result. A Spread Factor of 1.5 to 2.0 is recommended, especially in classes where team members are reluctant to penalise weak contributors and/or reward the highest contributors through their peer assessment rating responses.

Values for the NPR range from zero to 100. Calculations that exceed these ranges are clipped to fit within zero to 100

Rank Based Personal Result

RPR

The Rank Based Personal Result is calculated from the Team Result combined with the student's specific Rank Within Team based on that student's Peer Assessed Score. Like the Normalised Personal Personal Result the RPR method awards the AVERAGE student in the team the Team Result. All remaining students are awarded a personal result above or below the Team Result depending on whether their Rank Within Team is above or below that team's middle-ranked student.

Features of the Rank Based Personal Result (PR) calculation method are that (a) A team's RPR values are spread over a MUCH WIDER range than the NPR and IPR methods. Small differences in PA scores within a team are amplified significantly by this method (b) In contrast to the IPR method, the RPR method calculates a Personal Result significantly ABOVE the Team Result for the top ranked student in the team (c) Like the NPR method, the average of the team's RPR values matches the Team Result. Values for the Rank Based Personal Result range from zero to 100. Calculations that exceed these ranges are clipped to fit within the range zero to 100.

Note that in the Xorro version of Peer Assess Pro, we have renamed the following Personal Result Methods from those used in the Google Docs version of Peer Assess Pro.

Renaming of terms for Peer Assess Pro

Peer Assess Pro

Abbreviation

Google Peer Assess Pro

Abbreviation

Peer Assessed Score

PA Score

Team Based Learning Score

TBL Score Score

Peer Assessed Index

PA Index

Team Based Learning Index

TBL Index

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?


FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

A teacher has several alternative calculation methods to determine a personal result from a team member’s Peer Assess Pro assessment. The teacher will usually advise team members about the method they have chosen.

The teacher’s choice of calculation method for a personal result is determined by the teacher's preference for

These choices are illustrated in this figure.

A student’s Personal Result emerges from the Teacher’s choice of Calculation Method, relative Peer Assessed Score, and Team Result

Calculation methods that exclude a team result

The teacher should select either the Peer Assessed Score (PA Score) or Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) if they wish to exclude the team result in calculating the personal result. Alternatively, set the team result, TR, equal for all teams and use either the IPR, NPR, or RPR methods.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) calculated?

Calculation methods that incorporate a team result from team outputs

More usually, the Peer Assessed Score (PA Score) and team result are combined through one of three methods. The following methods are listed in order of increasing impact for compensating more strongly students who have contributed significantly to their teams, and under-rewarding students who are peer assessed as weak contributors

FAQ: How is the Indexed Personal Result (IPR) calculated?

FAQ: How is the Normalised Personal Result (NPR) calculated?

FAQ: How is the Rank Based Personal Result (RPR) calculated?

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What factors are measured in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

Automated communications to students

The Teachers Process Flowchart: Detail illustrates the points throughout the peer assessment process where emails are sent to students to advise them

In most cases, the emails are generated automatically by the Peer Assess Pro system. In the case of warnings, the teacher has the option of initiating an email request to a student, or ignoring that warning.

Copies of all emails are sent to the teacher whose Xorro account was used to launch the activity

Standard operating mode

When you create and launch a Peer Assess Pro™ Peer Assessment activity in Xorro AND the Start Date has been reached:

Alternative mode for student access to assessment and results

Alternatively, the teacher can direct students to the Participant URL shown at the top left of the  Xorro HOME page. The student must then select from a list the correct peer assessment activity for their response. The teacher may deliver other Xorro-based test activities from which the student must select the correct Peer Assess Pro™ activity distinguished by the Activity Title specified by the teacher.

FAQ: How do I view and experience what the students experience?

FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey? in the peer assessment survey?


FAQ: How do I view and experience what the students experience?

View your student’s personal results feedback report directly from your Teacher’s Dashboard

Click on the name of a student, and you will view the feedback report available for the student.

There are four possible views.

The student’s views are anonymised.

View your students’ experience of the Peer Assess Pro™ survey

Enter your Participants’ URL into your browser


Select the activity you wish to experience

Login in using the Identification (id) of a student in the Team List Group used to create the activity


View a survey ready and waiting for responses

The student will see this view when all of the following are TRUE:

Note that students can continue to submit responses AFTER the Due Date UNTIL the teacher has Finalised the activity.

View a sample question

View a student’s published results

The student will be able to see their Personal Results when all the following are true:

A student with a Xorro Plus account may view his results any time after the Activity is Finalised by the Teacher.

The student views

Example results for a student

View the peer assessment survey for a demonstration class

Xxx TO DO xxx

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey? in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?


FAQ: Why are different terms used to display peer assessment results in the Xorro and previous Google versions of Peer Assess Pro™?

The following terms have been renamed from the Google version of Peer Assess Pro for Peer Assess Pro

Renaming of terms for Peer Assess Pro

Peer Assess Pro

Abbreviation

Google Peer Assess Pro

Abbreviation

Peer Assessed Score

PA Score

Team Based Learning Score

PA Score Score

Peer Assessed Index

PA Index

Team Based Learning Index

PA Index

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?


FAQ: How do I take action on the Warnings presented in the Peer Assess Pro™ Teacher’s Dashboard?’ What if I ignore the Warnings?

In general, see the Sections

Action responses to warnings

Responding to Active Warnings

Warning messages are under constant development and refinement as we respond to facilitators’ and team members’ experience of Peer Assess Pro.

Critical and catastrophic warnings!

These warnings must be resolved, otherwise utterly invalid results will arise, and students’ time will be wasted completing incorrect surveys.

Example: The composition of a team needs adjusting, see

See Adjusting team composition

Important warnings

Peer Assess Pro will not be able to present results for all teams unless these warnings are resolved.

Example: Insufficient responses from a team are received

See Results hidden from team members and teacher

Example: Enter Team Results:

See Enter Team Results

Informational warnings

Advisory warnings do not affect critically the operation of Peer Assess Pro. However, the teacher would be prudent to review the details to ensure that peer assessments have been conducted fairly and honestly.

Example: Overgenerous or parsimonious ratings by a team member.

FAQ: How is an outlier peer assessment rating identified? WARNING 0042 

Optional emails generated for team members

Several warnings give the facilitator the option to despatch an email to students advising them of exceptional conditions and requesting their action. For example

The criteria used to generate these warnings, and the recommended response by the facilitator is detailed in this section:

Responding to Active Warnings

For example, in the case of a Mismatched self-assessment, the team member is invited to meet with the teacher to explore the reasons for the mismatch, and develop approaches to narrow the gap.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro?

Responding to Active Warnings


FAQ: When, why, and how do I Refresh and Update Results?

When to recalculate

 You select Refresh and Update results when

Why recalculate?

The most important reason is that you as a teacher MUST be able to review results BEFORE displaying (publishing) results to students. After examining the results to date, you might publish an interim snapshot of the results for view by students.

Students may review the interim results and raise issues such as a questionable peer assessment rating, such as scapegoating. Alternatively, you may need to adjust a Team Result, or experiment with another method of Personal Result Calculation.

In this situation, we have presumed you do not want new responses, nor adjustments to be immediately viewable by students. In particular,  you need the opportunity to review the effect of adjustments before explicitly publishing revised results to students.

How to recalculate

Quick links and related information


FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?

The Peer Assess Pro survey measures one overall assessment, Recommendation, followed by ten quantitative ratings, then several qualitative questions.

The ten quantitative ratings are used to calculate the Peer Assessment Score (PA Score). The ten ratings are categorized into two classes: Contribution to Task, and Contribution to Leadership and Teamwork, as shown in the example survey below.

In addition, two qualitative questions are asked that request examples of behaviours supporting the quantitative ratings in relation to Contribution to Task, and Contribution to Leadership and Teamwork. Finally, the assessor is asked to provide Development Feedback. That is, advice that would help the team member improve their future contribution to the team.

Quick links and related information

FAQ - What is the benefit of a standardized peer assessment rubric?

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?

The ten questions used as the basis for calculating the Peer Assessment Score are adapted from:

Deacon Carr, S., Herman, E. D., Keldsen, S. Z., Miller, J. G., & Wakefield, P. A. (2005). Peer feedback. In The Team Learning Assistant Workbook. New York: McGraw Hill Irwin.


Example Peer Assessment Survey: Quantitative

My name is:

I am rating my team member:

My Team name is:

Team Member A

Team Member B

Team Member C

Self

Recommendation

How likely is it that you would recommend this team member to a friend, colleague or employee?

1 = Highly unlikely, 5 = Extremely likely

Contribution to Task Accomplishment

Rate the team member on a 5-point scale.

Rating scale:

1 = Almost never, 2 = Seldom, 3 = Average, 4 = Better than most, 5 = Outstanding

Rate your typical or average team member a mid-level rating of 3.

Initiative

Shows initiative by doing research and analysis.

Takes on relevant tasks with little prompting or suggestion.

Attendance

Prepares for, and attends scheduled team and class meetings.

Contribution

Makes positive contributions to meetings.

Helps the team achieve its objectives.

Professionalism

Reliably fulfils assigned tasks.

Work is of professional quality.

Ideas and learning

Contributes ideas to the team's analysis.

Helps my learning of course and team project concepts.

Contribution to Leadership and Team Processes

Focus and task allocation

Keeps team focused on priorities.

Facilitates goal setting, problem solving, and task allocation to team members.

Encourages contribution

Supports, coaches, or encourages all team members to contribute productively.

Listens and welcomes

Listens carefully and welcomes the contributions of others.

Conflict management and harmony

Manages conflict effectively.

Helps the team work in a harmonious manner.

Chairmanship

Demonstrates effective leadership for the team.

Chairs meetings productively.


Example Peer Assessment Survey: Qualitative

Peer Assessment Survey:

Feedback to the team member

Submit one copy of this form for each team member

My name is:

I am a member of Team Number and Name:

I am assessing (student’s name):

Contribution to Task Accomplishment

For the team member you have assessed, provide specific examples of productive or ineffective behaviours related to your ratings of Contribution to Task Accomplishment. For example, shows initiative; attends meetings; makes positive contributions; helps team achieve objectives; is reliable; contributes quality work; contributes to learning of course concepts. Further examples here http://tinyurl.com/BARSOhland

Contribution to Leadership and Team Processes

For the team member you have assessed, provide specific examples of productive or ineffective behaviours related to your ratings of Contribution to Leadership and Team Processes. For example: keeps team focused on priorities; supports, coaches and encourages team members; listens carefully; manages conflict effectively; demonstrates effective leadership.

Development feedback

What specific behaviours or attitudes would help your team member contribute more effectively towards your team's accomplishments, leadership, and processes? Please provide specific positive or constructive feedback that could enable the team member to improve their behaviour productively. Considering your team member's strengths, how could that person coach other team members to acquire similar strengths for Task Accomplishment, Team Processes, and Leadership?

Source: Peer Assess Pro (2019).


FAQ: Why FINALISE a survey?

Survey responses from Team Members are received and available for incorporation into the Peer Assessment activity UNTIL the you explicitly Finalise the Survey. Specifically, responses submitted by students after the Due Date announced to students, at the launch of the Activity, will be available for incorporation UNTIL the survey is Finalised deliberately by the Teacher. Until you Finalise, you can request a student to reconsider their responses. Students can optionally resubmit their responses until you Finalise.

When you FINALISE, the current state of the Live View of Gradebook results will be Published to students for their view.

Best practice before FINALISE SURVEY


Recommended steps prior to FINALISE: LMS platform

Recommended steps prior to FINALISE: Xorro platform


Download Teacher’s Gradebook of Results

From the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s Dashboard, select either

Example Gradebook Summary Statistics

Example Gradebook Full Statistics

Finalise the Survey … irrevocably!

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

FAQ - What is an inactive team member? WARNING 0048


FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

The Peer Assessed Score, PA Score, is a relative measure of the degree to which a team member has contributed to their team's overall achievement, team processes, and leadership.

A Peer Assessed Score is generally used to compare the relative contribution of students WITHIN the same team, rather than BETWEEN teams. The Team Result has NO impact on the value of the Peer Assessed Score.

The PA Score is calculated for each team member directly from summing the ten ratings of Team and Leadership Contribution surveyed in the peer assessment. The sum of ratings is  adjusted by scale factors to give values for the PA Score that range from zero through 100.

The Peer Assessed Score is an essential factor used as the basis for calculating several alternative measures of Personal Result including the Peer Assessed Index (PA Index), Indexed Personal Result (IPR), Normalised Personal Result (NPR), and Rank Based Personal Result (RPR).

The self-assessment is excluded from calculating PA Score

The self-assessment conducted by a team-member is EXCLUDED from the calculation of their Peer Assessed Score. The self-assessment, PA (self),  is used to enable the student to compare their self-perception with that of their team members, and the class as a whole. One method of comparison, the IRSA, is based on the ratio  as detailed in the FAQ:

FAQ: How is the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA) calculated?


Mathematical definition of Peer Assessed Score, PA Score

There are ten Peer Rating components  awarded by each Assessor, a, to each Assessee, s, in the team of t members. The mathematical task is to combine all these ratings into one Peer Assessed Score for each team member.

The Peer Assessed SubScore  is defined as the peer assessment score awarded by Assessor a to Assessee s:

                           

Where

 = the Peer Rating for each of the ten peer assessment components, r,  submitted by the Assessor a for the assessed team member, the Assessee, s. The student’s self-assessment is excluded from the calculation of the PA Score. The Recommendation rating is excluded from calculation of the PA Score.

To ensures the PA Score ranges from zero through 100 the following features are required in the above formula:


The Peer Assessed Score,  for team members s is the mean of the PA Subscores awarded by the other (t - 1) team members to the team member s.

Where

t = the number of team members in the team in which s is a team member.

 = the peer assessment score awarded by Assessor a to Assessee s, mathematically defined earlier.

Note that Peer Assessed Score takes NO account of the team’s Team Result. The Team Result is accounted for in the Indexed Personal Result (IPR), Normalised Personal Result (NPR) and Rank-Based Personal Result (RPR) methods discussed elsewhere.

An example calculation is shown below. In the first table, the team member Bridget (ASSESSEE) is rated by her three team members (ASSESSORS), plus her own self-rating. The subsequent tables show the calculation of the Peer Assessment Score for all four team members based on all team members’ assessment ratings. The long-form calculations show in detail the arithmetic calculations.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?

Alternative but equivalent methods for calculating the Peer Assessed Score are detailed below in the section:

Alternative mathematical formulations of PA Score

 

Example table of assessments for assessed team member Bridget

ASSESSEE: Bridget

ASSESSOR:

Ratings by team member:

Team Name: Kubla

Bridget (Self)

Julian

Lydia

Nigella

Mean Rating

Contribution to Task Accomplishment

Rating scale:

1 = Almost never, 2 = Seldom, 3 = Average, 4 = Better than most, 5 = Outstanding

Initiative

Shows initiative by doing research and analysis.

Takes on relevant tasks with little prompting or suggestion.

5

5

3

1

9/3

Attendance

Prepares for, and attends scheduled team and class meetings.

4

4

4

1

9/3

Contribution

Makes positive contributions to meetings.

Helps the team achieve its objectives.

4

5

5

1

11/3

Professionalism

Reliably fulfils assigned tasks.

Work is of professional quality.

4

3

4

1

8/3

Ideas and learning

Contributes ideas to the team's analysis.

Helps my learning of course and team project concepts.

5

5

5

1

11/3

Contribution to Leadership and Team Processes

Focus and task allocation

Keeps team focused on priorities.

Facilitates goal setting, problem solving, and task allocation to team members.

5

5

3

1

9/3

Encourages contribution

Supports, coaches, or encourages all team members to contribute productively.

4

4

4

1

9/3

Listens and welcomes

Listens carefully and welcomes the contributions of others.

5

5

3

1

9/3

Conflict management and harmony

Manages conflict effectively.

Helps the team work in a harmonious manner.

4

4

4

1

9/3

Chairmanship

Demonstrates effective leadership for the team.

Chairs meetings productively.

5

5

5

1

11/3

SubTotal

SubTotal = Task + Leadership

45

45

40

10

# 95/30

( 3.167)

Peer Assessed Score

PA Score = (2.5 x SubTotal ) - 25

* 87.5

87.5

75

0

54.2

* The self-assessment ratings are excluded from calculation of the PA Score. So, 54.2 = (87.5 + 75 + 0) / 3

# Alternatively, PA Score = (25 x Mean Rating) - 25. So, 54.2  = 25 x 95/30 - 25 = (25 x 3.167) - 25


Example calculations of Peer Assessed Score

Suppose that the Peer Assessed Scores determined from all four team members rating each other appear as follows. Bridget’s PA Scores are copied from the previous table, forming the second vertical column here.

Since

Now consider the Assessment by Lydia of Bridget

In the previous table, note how Nigella rated Bridget with the minimum possible rating of one for all ten components. By definition, that gives a PA Score of zero. Similarly, if an assessor had rated a team member the maximum rating of five across all ten components, then a PA Score of 100 would have resulted.

Peer Assessed Sub-Scores for a team of four members

ASSESSEE

ASSESSOR

Bridget

Julian

Lydia

Nigella

Bridget

87.5

62.5

75

72.5

Julian

87.5

92.5

87.5

82.5

Lydia

75

82.5

77.5

80

Nigella

0

77.5

82.5

82.5


Now the PA Score for each ASSESSEE team member is calculated from the mean of the PA SubScores provided by the other ASSESSORS in their team, as shown in the following table. The self-assessments of each ASSESSOR are excluded from the calculation. For example, the PA Score for Nigella is determined as follows from the ratings by her three teammates Bridget, Julian and Lydia:

Since

Then for Nigella

Calculation of Peer Assessed (PA) Scores for a team of four members

ASSESSEE

ASSESSOR

Bridget

Julian

Lydia

Nigella

Bridget

-

62.5

75

72.5

Julian

87.5

-

87.5

82.5

Lydia

75

82.5

-

80

Nigella

0

77.5

82.5

-

Peer Assessed Score

54.2

74.2

81.7

78.3


Note how Nigella’s rating of Bridget (PA Score = 0) seems an outlier when compared with the much higher ratings given by Julian and Lydia (7.5 and 75). Peer Assess Pro warns the teacher when outlier ratings like this occur.

This outlier issue is discussed in

FAQ: How is an outlier peer assessment rating identified? WARNING 0042                                         

Alternative mathematical formulations of PA Score

The following equations provide the identical mathematical result for the calculation of PA Score.

Calculation from Average Rating

Where:

Average Rating is the average rating of an assessed student s averaged over all the ten components of the rating for that student, by their team members. The Average Rating lies between 1 and 5.

The factor (-1) adjusts the Average Rating value to zero through 4. The scale factor 100 /4 adjusts the PA Score to lie between zero and 100.

Notice from the first table showing ratings of Bridget that the average rating across all ten components contributing to her Peer Assessment Score given by her three team members was shown as  

Therefore, the PA Score is calculated directly from the average rating:

Calculation from Average Team and Leadership Contributions

Finally,

 

         

Where:

ATC and ALC are the average ratings for the five components that comprise the Task and Leadership contributions, respectively.

Mathematically:

ATC and ALC range over the values 1 through 5. The factor (-1) adjusts those values from zero through 4. The scale factor 50/4 (= 12.5) ensures that the PA Score achieves a range from zero to 100.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?

FAQ: How is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?

The self-assessment conducted by a team-member when they rate their team members is EXCLUDED from the calculation of that team member’s Peer Assessed Score. Instead, their self-assessment, PA (self),  is used to enable the team member to compare their self-perception with that of their team members, and the class as a whole. This comparison is provided to the team member through a SPider Chart and the calculation of their Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA).

Spider chart of individual and averaged team peer ratings

The Spider Chart shows each of their eleven ratings provided by themself, compared with the average of the ratings provided to them by their peer team members. The class average ratings for each of the 11 factors are also provided.  In this example, the team member has significantly UNDERRATED themself on nearly all factors (innermost plots), when compared with the ratings provided by their team members (orange).

Spider Chart comparison of self and other team members’ contribution ratings

Index of Realistic Self-Assessment (IRSA)

Another method of comparison, the IRSA, is based on the ratio

as detailed in the FAQ:

FAQ: How is the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA) calculated?

For the team member illustrated in the foregoing Spider Chart, their Peer Assessed Score, PA Score, is 92 and their self-assessed Score, PA (self), is 75. The ratio results in the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA) 122 = 100 x 92 / 75.

An IRSA between 75 and 95 is typical of about 2/3 of team members in a class. About ⅙ of team members achieve an IRSA below 75. Such people appear to assess their team members excessively OVERCONFIDENT in their abilities. In contrast, an IRSA above 95 suggests the team member has a tendency to UNDERESTIMATE their team contribution when contrasted with the assessment perceived by their team members.

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?


FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) calculated?

The Peer Assessed Index is defined such that the team member with the maximum PA Score for each team is assigned a PA Index of 100. All other team members in the same team are scaled in relation to the maximum PA Score for that group.

In a gradebook of results, the PA Index is useful for identifying the team members most highly rated by their peers, as they have PA Indexes in the 90 to 100 range. In combination with the Team Result, the PA Index is used to calculate the Indexed Personal Result, (IPR), Normalised Personal Result, (NPR) and Rank-Based Personal Result (RPR).

Mathematical definition of Peer Assessed Index

Where

 = the Peer Assessed Score for a team member s in team t, as defined in: FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

= the maximum value of PA Score found across all members in team t.


Example calculations of Peer Assessed Index

Consider a team of four team members, whose PA Scores are shown in the following table. Lydia has a PA Score of 82, the highest for the team. Therefore, Lydia’s PA Index is 100, by definition.

Calculation of Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) for a team of four members

ASSESSEE

ASSESSOR

Bridget

Julian

Lydia

Nigella

Bridget

-

62.5

75

72.5

Julian

87.5

-

87.5

82.5

Lydia

75

82.5

-

80

Nigella

0

77.5

82.5

-

Peer Assessed Score

54

74

82

78

Peer Assessed Index

66

90

100

95

Bridget has a PA Score of 54, the lowest for the team. Therefore, since

Note that, as expected

The data for the previous table is drawn from

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?

Quick links and related information

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity?

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?


FAQ: How is the Indexed Personal Result (IPR) calculated?

The Indexed Personal Result (IPR) is calculated from the Team Result (TR) combined with the team member’s specific Peer Assessed Index (PA Index). The Indexed Personal Result method awards the Team Result to the TOP RATED team member in the team, since, by definition, their Peer Assessed Index is 100. All remaining team members in the same team earn the Team Result downwards, directly proportional to their PA Index.

The definition of Indexed Personal Result means that NO team member can earn an Indexed Personal Result greater than the Team Result. That is, values for the Indexed Personal Result range from zero up to the Team Result. Consequently, the IPR disadvantages team members who have been rated unfavourably by their peers. However, no reward is made for the team member(s) who have been rated as the most contributing team members. In contrast, the Normalised Personal Result and Rank-Based Personal Result do award a Personal Result above the Team Result for those team members who contribute above average to the team’s outputs, as assessed by their peers.

Mathematical definition of Indexed Personal Result

For each team member s, in their team, t

Where

= the team result awarded by the teacher for the outputs of team t

= the Peer Assessed Index for the team member s, as defined in