Manage a Peer Assessment Activity using Xorro

Reference Guide for Teachers and Students

Version 2.0 2019-09-18

Peter Mellalieu peter@peerassesspro.com 

+64 21 42 0118 Skype myndSurfer

Patrick Dodd patrick@peerassesspro.com 

+64 21 183 6315

QUICK START GUIDE

This table shows the sequence of steps required to register, launch, manage, and download the final gradebook for a Peer Assess Pro peer assessment using Xorro.

Hyperlinked at www.peerassesspro.com/quickstart-guide-for-teachers

Most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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

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

FAQ: What is the purpose of peer assessment?

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

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

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

Quick Link Map

Launching Peer Assess Pro™ using Xorro-Q

>>> Reference Guide at http://tinyurl.com/papRefPdf 

This guide helps teachers familiar with peer assessment^[5] to use our Peer Assess Pro™ team peer assessment platform through the Xorro-Q interface. Once logged in to Xorro-Q, you launch a peer assessment activity. During the launch process, you upload a Peer Assessment Teamset that specifies team members, their team, login id and, optionally, their email. The Teamset is a comma separated variable (csv) file illustrated below. The Peer Assess Pro peer assessment activity notifies by email to each team member a unique, student-specific survey activity URL that gathers the peer assessments of their team members. Timely reminders and final result announcements are generated automatically and communicated to the students from Peer Assess Pro via the email addresses you provided in the Teamset.

Teachers Process Flowchart: Overview

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

Questions, Feedback and Contact

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

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

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

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

Example Peer Assessment TeamSet CSV File

>>> Download CSV,  EXCEL,  or Google Sheet

Example Survey Questions for a Team Member

Screenshots of the peer assessment activity

PEER ASSESS PRO REFERENCE GUIDE

QUICK START GUIDE        1

Most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)        2

Quick Link Map        2

Teachers Process Flowchart: Overview        3

Questions, Feedback and Contact        4

Example Peer Assessment TeamSet CSV File        4

Example Survey Questions for a Team Member        4

Screenshots of the peer assessment activity        5

PEER ASSESS PRO REFERENCE GUIDE        6

1. Login to your Xorro HOME page        18

1.1 First time users: Register        19

Register a new Xorro Teacher’s Account as a Free Facilitator        19

Getting started with Xorro Q        19

Extended free trial for New Zealand higher education institutions        19

1.2 Login from your registered Xorro Account        20

1.3 Orient yourself to the Xorro HOME Dashboard        21

1.4 Orient yourself to the Peer Assess Pro Dashboard        23

1.5 Peer Assess Pro system flowchart detail        24

2. Launch Peer Assessment activity        26

2.1 Quick start launch        27

2.2 Create the peer assessment teamset CSV        28

Alternative TeamSet CSV templates        28

Instructions and column explanations for the Peer assessment TeamSet CSV        29

Requirements for a peer assessment teamset CSV file        31

Create a CSV version of your teamset file        31

Why won’t Xorro load my Teamset file?        32

Good practice hint: Create distinctive group codes for every peer assessment activity you launch        32

Large, multi-cohort streams in a class        33

Here There Be Dragons!        33

2.3 Launch and create the peer assessment activity        34

Select ACTIVITIES from the top menu bar        34

Launch Peer Assessment        35

Good practice hint: Avoid using the Xorro default Due Date        35

The Due Date date is advisory only        36

Initiate Create Activity        36

Here There Be Dragons        36

View the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard        37

Invite team members to respond and other automated activities        38

2.4 Use a Teamset Group to launch a peer assessment        41

From the Xorro HOME page select the PARTICIPANTS page        41

Select ‘Import Participants’        41

Browse to your Team Members Group CSV file        42

Load, check and confirm correct team membership, then Import        42

Check class and team membership        43

3. Manage the Peer Assessment Activity        45

3.1 Action responses to warnings        46

Adjusting team composition        47

3.2 Automated and manual notifications        48

3.3 Enter Team Results        48

3.4 Select the Personal Result Calculation Method        50

3.5 Review class, team, and individual statistics        51

Review Class Results        51

Good practice hint: How to identify at risk students        52

The Individual Personal Snapshot        52

Four possible views of the Individual Personal Snapshot        55

Team Statistics        57

Qualitative Feedback        58

Teacher’s Feedback        58

Advanced Statistics        59

3.6 Publish provisional Personal Results to team members        60

Unpublished status        60

Published status        61

Results hidden when insufficient responses        61

4. Finalise the peer assessment activity        63

4.1 Why Finalise?        64

4.2 Publish Finalised Results to students        64

4.3 Download Teacher’s Gradebook of Results        65

4.4 Finalise the Activity … irrevocably!        66

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS        67

Quick Link Map        67

FAQs for teachers        68

The peer assessment survey        68

Login and orientation        68

Launch peer assessment activity        69

Manage the peer assessment activity        69

Responding to Active Warnings        70

Definitions, calculations, and examples        70

Miscellaneous        71

FAQs for team members        72

The purpose of peer assessment        72

Undertaking the peer assessment        72

Using the results from peer assessment for better performance        73

How peer assessment affects personal results        73

FAQ: What is the purpose of peer assessment?        74

Defining peer assessment        74

Developmental feedback        74

Determination of course personal result        74

Criteria for peer assessment in Peer Assess Pro™        75

Peer Assess Pro assesses competencies valued by employers        75

FAQ: When and how is the peer assessment conducted?        77

Formative assessment: optional but valuable        77

No surprises!        78

FAQ: How do I provide useful feedback to my team members?        80

FAQ: I believe I have been unfairly treated by the results of the peer assessment. How do I address my concern?        82

Symptoms of an unfair assessment        82

Steps to address an unfair peer assessment        82

A note on appealing a peer assessment result        83

Prevention is better than cure        84

FAQ: How do I interpret the feedback results I've received from the peer assessment?        86

FAQ: I don’t understand what my teammates are trying to tell me. How do I ask for better feedback?        87

FAQ: What steps can I take to get a better personal result?        88

Raise your Team Result        88

Use your institution’s academic support services        88

Raise your Peer Assessed Score        89

How do I address proactively the challenges of team work?        89

Learning constructively from mid-course peer assessment feedback        90

FAQ: What happens if I try to 'game' (fool? play? disrupt?) the peer assessment process?        92

The tricks we know!        92

Examples: Highly specific and individualized information        93

1. Low quality assessor rating        93

2. Low quality team rating        93

3. Outlier individual rating        94

4. Mismatched self-assessment        94

5. At risk team member        95

Example: Better feedback. Better teams        95

Which teams will raise the Active Warning: Low quality team rating?        96

Which teams tend to have a higher team result?        97

Which teams have worked most productively as a team?        97

Active Warnings, thresholds parameters, and program logic        99

FAQ: Give me a quick overview of how to launch a Peer Assess Pro™ activity through Xorro        100

FAQ: What are the design objectives, key features, and benefits of the Peer Assess Pro development?        102

Design objectives        102

Benefits for students        102

Benefits for teachers        103

Peer Assess Pro™ is a work in progress        103

Where’s the latest?        104

FAQ: How do I find the Peer Assess Pro Xorro Teacher’s dashboard?        105

HOME: Running Activities        105

Alternative method: ACTIVITIES: Running Activities        105

FAQ: How do I navigate the PARTICIPANTS page for Peer Assess Pro?        108

Select PARTICIPANTS Tab        108

Orientation note: Select an existing Group        109

Inactive functions in PARTICIPANTS page        110

FAQ: How do I correct the Team Composition in a running peer assessment activity?        111

Take care! Here there be dragons!!        111

Key check points        111

View the team composition        111

Correct the team composition        112

Subtle technical note        113

FAQ: Can I create a peer assessment activity without having all my teams correctly identified by team name and/or team membership?        114

FAQ: How do I create a CSV file from a Google Sheet?        115

FAQ: How do I view a demonstration version of Peer Assess Pro?        116

FAQ: How do I correct the participants (team members) in a group already uploaded to Xorro?        117

View an existing imported Group        117

Correct the team members associated with an existing Xorro TeamSet Group        118

FAQ: Where may I view the most recent version of the user guides?        119

Quickstart Guide        119

Video guides        119

Latest reference guide        119

Work in progress Google DOCS development version        119

Frequently Asked Questions for teachers and team members        120

Teachers Process Flowchart        120

FAQ: How do I decide which Personal Result method to apply in my peer assessment activity        121

FAQ: How are peer assessment and personal results calculated and defined mathematically?        127

Calculation methods that exclude a team result        128

Calculation methods that incorporate a team result from team outputs        128

FAQ: How do students know where and when to complete the peer assessment activity then review their results?        129

Automated communications to students        129

Standard operating mode        129

Alternative mode for student access to assessment and results        130

FAQ: How do I view and experience what the students experience?        131

View your student’s personal results directly from your Teacher’s Dashboard        131

View your students’ experience of the Peer Assess Pro™ survey        131

Enter your Participants’ URL into your browser        131

Select the activity you wish to experience        132

Login in using the Identification (id) of a student in the Team List Group used to create the activity        132

View a survey ready and waiting for responses        133

View a sample question        133

View a student’s published results        134

View the peer assessment survey for a demonstration class        136

FAQ: Why are different terms used to display peer assessment results in the Xorro and previous Google versions of Peer Assess Pro™?        137

FAQ: How do I take action on the Warnings presented in the Peer Assess Pro™ Teacher’s Dashboard?’ What if I ignore the Warnings?        138

Critical and catastrophic warnings!        138

Important warnings        138

Informational warnings        139

Optional emails generated for team members        139

FAQ: When, why, and how do I Refresh and Update Results?        140

When to recalculate        140

Why recalculate?        140

How to recalculate        141

FAQ: What questions are asked in the peer assessment survey?        142

Example Peer Assessment Survey: Quantitative        143

Example Peer Assessment Survey: Qualitative        144

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed (PA) Score calculated?        145

The self-assessment is excluded from calculating PA Score        145

Mathematical definition of Peer Assessed Score, PA Score        146

Example calculations of Peer Assessed Score        149

Alternative mathematical formulations of PA Score        151

Calculation from Average Rating        151

Calculation from Average Team and Leadership Contributions        152

FAQ: How is the self-assessment used to calculate Peer Assessed Score?        153

Spider chart of individual and averaged team peer ratings        153

Index of Realistic Self-Assessment (IRSA)        154

FAQ: How is the Peer Assessed Index (PA Index) calculated?        155

Mathematical definition of Peer Assessed Index        155

Example calculations of Peer Assessed Index        156

FAQ: How is the Indexed Personal Result (IPR) calculated?        158

Mathematical definition of Indexed Personal Result        158

Example calculations of Indexed Personal Result        159

FAQ: How is the Normalised Personal Result (NPR) calculated?        161

Mathematical definition of Normalised Personal Result        162

Example calculations of Normalised Personal Result        163

Impact of adjusting the Spread Factor on Normalised Personal result        165

FAQ: How is the Rank Based Personal Result (RPR) calculated?        167

Mathematical definition of Rank-Based Personal Result        168

Example calculations of Rank-Based Personal Result        169

Example calculation with tied ranks        171

FAQ: How is Standard Peer Assessed Score (SPAS) calculated?        172

Design features of Standard Peer Assessed Score        173

Mathematical calculation        174

Example calculations of Standard Peer Assessed Score        176

Example charts for Standard Peer Assessed Score        178

Assumptions about Standard Peer Assessed Score        179

The impact of gaming peer assessment        180

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?        180

FAQ: Would a student received the same Standard Peer Assessed Score (SPAS) if rated in another class?        181

FAQ: What is Employability? How is it  calculated?        182

Mathematical calculation of Employability        182

Conditioning transformations to de-emphasise unsubstantiated precision        183

Example calculations of Employability        183

FAQ: How is the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA) calculated?        186

Mathematical definition of the Index of Realistic Self Assessment        186

Example calculations of the Index of Realistic Self Assessment        187

Why an IRSA of 100 is not a perfect score!        188

FAQ: How do I interpret measures of realistic self-assessment?        190

Interpreting the Index of Realistic Self Assessment (IRSA)        190

Typical IRSA        190

Overconfident IRSA        190

Underconfident IRSA        190

Developing an exceptionally realistic self image, ERSA        191

What are the benefits of having an Exceptionally Realistic Self-Image?        191

What can get in the way of having an Exceptionally Realistic Self-Image?        191

How do I develop my Exceptionally Realistic Self-Image, ERSI?        192

FAQ: How is an outlier peer assessment rating identified? WARNING 0042        194

Warning detail        194

Example calculations        194

Threshold for warning of outlier individual peer rating        196

Alternative mathematical calculation of Assessor Impact        196

Alternative example calculations        197

FAQ: What is a mismatched self-assessment (IRSA)? WARNING 0040        199

Warning detail        199

Threshold for warning of mismatched self-assessment        200

Example calculations        200

Recommended action for facilitator        201

FAQ: What is a low quality team rating? WARNING 0050        202

Warning detail        202

Threshold for warning of low quality team rating        203

Example calculations        203

Recommended action for facilitator        204

High performing teams        204

Example case        204

FAQ: What is a low quality assessor rating? WARNING 0300        206

Warning detail        206

Threshold for warning of low quality assessor rating        206

Example calculations        207

Recommended action for facilitator        208

High performing teams        208

FAQ: What is a valid assessed team? WARNING 0022        209

Warning detail        209

Results not displayed to members of non-valid assessed teams        209

How many valid and invalid teams do I have?        210

Recommended action for facilitator        210

Mathematical definition        210

Example calculations        211

FAQ: What is an ‘at risk’ team member? WARNING 0044        212

Warning detail        212

Recommended action for facilitator        212

Threshold for warning of ‘at risk’ team member        213

Example calculation        213

Limitation        214

Alternative approaches to identifying at risk students        214

FAQ: What is the content of emails sent by Peer Assess Pro?        218

FAQ: How do I login to my peer assessment Activity URL        228

Activity URL        228

Participant URL        228

Successful login through Activity URL        229

FAQ: I am unable to login. My login failed        231

Investigation and remedies for login failure        231

You entered your ID incorrectly.        231

Your teacher or facilitator has entered your ID incorrectly        232

The Xorro Activity related to the Activity URL has not yet reached its Start Date        232

The Xorro Activity related to the Activity URL has been Finalised and Finished.        233

The Xorro Activity related to the Activity URL has been Abandoned        234

The institution manager for Xorro has not maintained payment of the subscription to use Xorro and/or Peer Assess Pro        234

An exceptional system fault has occurred with the Xorro participants database entry for your ID: duplicate identical ids        235

FAQ: Can I adjust the Start Date or Due Date for a running activity?        237

Adjusting the Start Date        237

Adjusting the Due Date        237

The good news: The Due Date date is advisory only        238

Advise students of your extended deadline        238

Worst case scenario: Abandon the peer assessment        238

CONTACT US        240

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

Extended free trial for New Zealand higher education institutions

New Zealand higher education institutions have an extended free trial period for the use of Peer Assess Pro. This free access is under an arrangement with Te Ako Aotearoa.

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

1.2 Login from your registered Xorro Account

• Browse to: http://qf.xorro.com
• Enter the Username and Password with which you were registered.

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

• Along the top right:

•  HOME  - this page!
•  ACTIVITIES  - All Running and the results from previous Activities you have executed and are Finalised and Expired..
•  PARTICIPANTS  - Here you view and import a class list of participants allocated into their teams, a teamset.

• Down the left:

• RUNNING ACTIVITIES - shows peer assessment and other Xorro Activities you have Created and Launched, but are not yet Expired
• RECENT PREPARED ACTIVITIES - activities you have created, but which have not yet Started. An unstarted activity means team members cannot view, login, access or complete the activity through their Participant’s URL. The activity will not yet be listed.
• RECENT RESULTS from Expired activities. A peer assessment activity is Expired automatically two weeks after it is FINALISED by the teacher from the Peer Assess Pro dashboard. Results from an Expired Activity can no longer viewed by a student.

•  Participant URL  - A team member can find ALL your current RUNNING ACTIVITIES at this URL. Follow the Participant URL to experience how a student sees Peer Assess Pro.
• When in doubt, lost, or confused select the   HOME  page or  ?HELP.     

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?

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

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 Dashboard

(To come)

1.5 Peer Assess Pro system flowchart detail

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

(To come)

2. Launch Peer Assessment activity

2.1 Quick start launch

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

Use any of these following templates to adapt and create your TeamSet 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.

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 CSV teamset.

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 perfectly created.

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

One cause of catastrophic failure is when a student is specified in more than one team. Sometimes this can happen when you have two similarly named, but not identical teams and the ids are repeated in the two teams.

2.2 Create the peer assessment teamset 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, group_code, team, and email. Precise INSTRUCTIONS and COLUMN EXPLANATIONS for each of these data are detailed below.

Alternative TeamSet CSV templates

Use any of these templates to adapt and create your TeamSet 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 teamset csv

Instructions and column explanations for the Peer assessment TeamSet CSV

Requirements for a peer assessment teamset CSV file

• The column headers must be represented exactly. Namely, lowercase first, last, team, group_code, and so on.
• The column headers may be provided in any sequence.
• All students in the same class will usually have the same Xorro group_code designation. Typically, use your class code extended as detailed in the Good Practice Hint below. For large classes, review the section below

•  Large, multi-cohort streams in a class.

• Check for duplicate ids in your CSV, and REMOVE.  A student cannot, must not, shall not be allocated to more than one team
• Ensure people with similar names, such as John SMITH and Cheung WANG have different ids.
• Ensure teams have 3 or more team members. Peer assessment results will not be produced for teams with 0, 1, or 2 members.
• 1123  ABC is an invalid id as it has a space between the characters. 123ABC is a valid id. #123ABC is an invalid id
• The file type required for import into Xorro is CSV, which means comma separated variables. You can download and view an example CSV file as described in the section Alternative teamset templates

Create a CSV version of your teamset 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 Teamset file?

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.

See, for example,

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:

• The class code you use to designate the class or course, eg BT101
• The teacher’s initials or name, eg PJM
• The due date or start date for the activity. eg 2020-03-28
• Optionally, annotate if the assessment is formative (FORM), mid course, or end of teaching, summative (SUM).

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 would have a different set of student names.

The group_code is specified in the Team Members Group 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: 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?

2.3 Launch and create the peer assessment activity

In summary

• Select ACTIVITIES from the Xorro top menu bar
•  Launch Peer Assessment , in which you will   Import  the Teamset CSV created earlier.
• Initiate  Create Activity        
• View the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard
• Peer Assess Pro will automatically invite students to respond once the Start At date has been reached.

Select ACTIVITIES from the top menu bar

Launch Peer Assessment

Enter the following details, in this sequence

• Activity Title - A description that will be meaningful to your students, such as the class name and assessment type eg BT101 Mid-semester Peer Assessment - Applied Management
• Teamset -  Import  - Identify and load the Teamset CSV file that you created in Step 2.2 here.
• Note the Group Code will be determined automatically from the Imported Teamset CSV uploaded in the previous step.
• Start At - the date:time from which the students will be able to view and complete the peer assessment. Once you have Created the Activity, students will NOT be able to view the activity or submit their responses UNTIL the Start date.
• Due Date - this is the date that students will be advised by which they should complete the peer assessment.

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:

• Email reminders to students to complete the assessment
• Prompts to the teacher to conduct important administration and management activities during the activity, and prior to Finalisation

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!’

Initiate Create Activity

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

Here There Be Dragons

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 immediately. Furthermore, the email advises the students the Start Date and Due Date.

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! But you can abandon the activity and start again. Review the foregoing FAQ for details.

View the Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard

• The Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s Dashboard will now show for this newly created activity
• Note the Activity Title, and Days remaining until the Due Date for student’s completion
• Note the Active Warnings. These advise you of actions you must take to deal with a variety of  circumstances that may require remedies.
• The created activity now appears as a RUNNING ACTIVITY even though the Start Date may not have been reached. It is RUNNING so far as the Teacher-Facilitator is concerned, enabling you to undertake several management activities explained in Section 3. Manage the Peer Assessment Activity 

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 peer assessment survey is composed, unique for every team and every student.
• Only once the Start Date is reached the survey is available for students’ access through the Activity-Specific Participant URL
• An email is sent to all Team Members requesting them to complete the peer assessment survey before the Due Date. The Activity-Specific Participant URL is included in the email.
• The Activity’s status  will be listed as a RUNNING ACTIVITY in the HOME and ACTIVITIES pages of Xorro.
• The Xorro Team Survey app begins to collect students’ responses to the survey, conveying the responses to the Peer Assess Pro database, report analyser, and Peer Assess Pro dashboard within Xorro.

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

Quick links and related information

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

• Upload a TeamSet CSV creating one or more TeamSet Groups
• Launch a Peer Assessment activity during which you
• Select the previously-imported TeamSet Group, then
• Create the Peer Assessment activity.

From the Xorro HOME page select the PARTICIPANTS page

(Image to come)

Select ‘Import Participants’

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

Quick links and related information

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.

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.

Every email is copied to the email account you used to register for Peer Assess Pro.

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.

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 only modify the team composition as per the following FAQ. Changes to the Xorro Group will have NO EFFECT on a currently running activity, unless you cancel 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 following FAQ.

Quick links and related information

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

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?

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.

• Indexed Personal Result
• Normalised Personal Result
• Rank Based Personal Result

You can later revise the Team Results anytime before you publish the results to your students.

Whenever you enter or revise Team Results, you may select the Publish or ‘Update’ button to update and communicate the revised Personal Results to your class.

Team Results are not used to calculate:

• Peer Assessed Score (Formerly Team Based Learning Score)
• Peer Assessed Index (Formerly Indexed Team Based Learning Score)

3.4 Select the Personal Result Calculation Method

This is the method you choose to calculate the Personal Result you will award to each team member.

• Select ‘Recalculate’ button from Available Actions
• Select the Calculation Method from the dropdown menu
• Confirm ‘Recalculate’

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

• Sort the table by clicking on the header for each column in the table
• Select and view a personal snapshot of the peer feedback report that will be made available to a specific student when you Publish or Update the results.

Good practice hint: How to identify at risk students

• Select Peer Assessed Score (PA Score) as the statistic for showing in Class Results
• Sort the table ascending by PA Score
• Interrogate the Individual Personal Snapshots of the lowest rating 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

• ‘who said what’ by team member name
• the individual ratings of the student by their team members
• all Active Warnings pertaining to that student and their team.

2. 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.
3. 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
4. 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

• Select ‘Refresh’ to ensure recent assessment submissions collected by Xorro are incorporated into the Peer Assess Pro database.
• Select Recalculate to ensure changes to Team Results are incorporated into calculations of students’ results.
• Select Publish Survey

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

• Check, resolve, or ignore Active Warnings.
• Refresh and Recalculate.
• Check again before Finalising publishing
• Publish Survey to make available latest, final results to team members.

4.3 Download Teacher’s Gradebook of Results

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

• Download Statistics - for a summary of the gradebook, by student name, id, Personal Result
• Download Full Statistics - for a complete breakdown of the components scores for each student, all personal result possibilities, and IRSA.
• Conduct a quick check of these results before you complete the next step, Finalise!

Example Gradebook Summary Statistics

Example Gradebook Full Statistics

4.4 Finalise the Activity … irrevocably!

• CRITICAL WARNING: From this point the Teacher can make NO FURTHER adjustments to Team Results, Team Composition, or Calculation Method. No further responses will be accepted.
• Select ‘Finalise Survey’.
• Students will be advised that their finalised results are available to review from their personal Xorro Dashboard
• Results are available for the student’s view for upto two weeks following Finalisation.
• Two weeks after Finalisation the state of the peer assessment activity changes from being a RUNNING ACTIVITY to an expired RECENT ACTIVITY. On the Xorro ACTIVITIES page, the ACTIVITY is now listed in RECENT ACTIVITIES. Students can no longer view the results of an (expired) RECENT ACTIVITY.
• The responses and responses of the activity are archived permanently in the Teacher’s Recent Activities schedule on Xorro.
• The Teacher may continue to download the Gradebook results and Qualitative reports after Finalisation and Expiration.

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

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: 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?

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

Launch peer assessment activity

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?

Manage the peer assessment activity

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

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

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

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

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 a valid assessed team? WARNING 0022

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

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

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

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

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? 

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

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: When and how is the peer assessment conducted?

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: 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 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

• Summative, where the peer assessment is used to determine a team member’s academic grade or personal result
• Formative, where the peer assessment provides feedback that a team member can use to improve their contribution to the future work of a team in which they are working

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:

• Team Result, the overall mark your team earns from its team project outputs, such as reports and presentations
• Peer Assessed Score, a measure of the relative contribution your team members assess that you have made to the team’s delivered outputs, teamwork processes, and/or leadership of the team.

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:

• Task Accomplishment: Contributions you make directly to help the team accomplish its task, such as showing initiative, professionalism, contributing ideas, helping other team members learn relevant concepts, and making well-prepared on-time contributions to meetings and team deliverables
• Leadership and Team Processes. Contributions such as focussing the team on priorities, encouraging and welcoming the contributions of others, managing conflict, and chairing meetings productively.

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 that teamwork, collaboration, professionalism, and oral communications rate amongst the most highly needed Career Readiness’ Competencies (CRCs) sought by employers. All these CRC 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?

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 generated immediately following the conclusion of the peer assessment activity. 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, an 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

• Fair, accurate, and honest
• Supported by qualitative feedback that supports the peer assessment ratings you provided in the Peer Assess Pro™  survey
• Reinforced by specific, actionable advice to the assessed team member about what behaviours they must undertake to improve their contribution to either the team’s outputs, or the team’s leadership and group processes.

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:

• Fair, accurate, and honest
• Supported by qualitative feedback that supports the peer assessment ratings provided in the Peer Assess Pro™  survey
• Reinforced by specific, actionable advice to the assessed team member about what behaviours they must undertake to improve their contribution to either the team’s outputs, or the team’s leadership and group processes.

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.

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 team mates in their peer assessment of you:

• The qualitative and development feedback provided from your team members provides no obvious support for the ratings they gave you
• You honestly have no idea what you could have done to match or exceed the contributions made by other team members to your team’s output and/or process or working together
• Your self-assessment differs markedly from the peer assessment score awared by your team members. This divergence is highlighted by a low Index of Realistic Self-Assessment (IRSA), that is, an IRSA below 70.

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:

• You failed to pursue in a timely manner the previously-described steps to address your perception of an unfair result. Do not wait until you receive your end of class results. Address your concern promptly when you receive your Peer Assess Pro peer assessment results.
• The teacher conducted both a formative and summative peer assessment. There is evidence that you received a poor formative (first) peer assessment. You failed subsequently to respond proactively and productively to the poor formative peer assessment. In otherwords, you had every opportunity to understand how the peer assessment process would affect your personal result, and what you required to achieve a better result in the summative, end of class peer assessment.
• You have received poor peer assessment results from other classes and/or teachers. There is little evidence you have responded productively to those previous poor peer assessments.
• There is strong consistency between the qualitative feedback, developmental feedback and the quantitative peer ratings that comprise your Peer Assessed Score.
• You have attempted to coerce your team members into awarding you a favourable rating. The act of coercion may be regarded by your institution as academic dishonesty, bullying and/or harrassment. Your instution will have vigorous policies that prosecute seriously behavior such as coercion, bullying, and harrassment. The consequences typically range from a failure for the assignment or course through to exclusion from the programme or institution.
• The formative peer assessment across the entire team was of low quality AND the Team Result awarded by the teacher is low. A low quality peer assessment by the entire team is evidenced where everyone rated each other with a Peer Assessed Score of between 90 to 100, or over a narrow range. This is self-inflicted injury on behalf of the entire team for failing to take productive advantage of the peer assessment process as a means to improve their team-work processes.

Prevention is better than cure

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

• Ensure you understand how your Peer Assessement Score and your teacher-awarded Team Result combine to produce the personal result you will receive for your contribution to team outputs and teamwork processes.
• Provide honest, accurate and constructive feedback to your team members.
• Seek to understand from your peer feedback results what behaviours and attitudes you should adopt to add value to your team’s process and results.
• Implement the changes required.
• Proactively check with your team members that you are on track with a more productive approach.

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:

• Your Team Result will increase
• Your team members will recognise that you have contributed to the team’s success in raising its Team Result
• Your team members, therefore, will raise their peer assessment of your contribution. So, therefore,
• Your Peer Assessed Score will rise.

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.

• Which teams would raise the Active Warning: Low quality team rating?
• Which teams tend to have a higher team result?
• Which teams have worked most productively as a team?

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

• Register for a free Xorro Teacher's Account, at https://www.xorro.com/free_accounts/new
• Login to Xorro with your Xorro registration details - http://qf.xorro.com/
• Create your class list as a csv file containing your class list organised into teams. Use this example format - https://qf.xorro.com/participants/import_sample
• Launch a peer assessment activity. You will be presented with the option to import your CSV class list of teams - https://qf.xorro.com/pap/launches/new
• Manage your peer assessment activity by returning to - https://qf.xorro.com/activities/running

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

Contact

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

Quick links and related information

View the web Quickstart Guide at tinyurl.com/pdfQuickWeb

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

• Streamline students’ experience when completing the peer assessment
• Automate for the teacher many functions for launching and managing a peer assessment
• Reduce the chance of accidents and errors in use. This includes streamlining the teacher’s administration of warning alerts about exceptional situations
• Provide the teacher with a structured approach to revealing results, probing specific teams’ and students’ performance and responses, and options for detailed exploratory data analysis.

Benefits for students

• A student will be able to rate all their team members in one combined peer assessment activity.  
• A students may more easily rate comparatively the performance of their team members including themself
• Students are provided with the facility to advise the teacher directly if they believe their team composition has been specified incorrectly by the teacher
• Students can update their assessment response at any time in response to a directive from their teacher. The last submitted response alone will be used in the peer assessment calculations
• Students view their assessment survey, peer assessment results, and personal result (grade)  by returning to a single URL communicated to them automatically by the Peer Assess Pro™ Teacher’s dashboard. Results are available for students’ view for no more than two weeks after the teacher has finalised the Peer Assess Pro™ Assessment Activity
• Optionally, a student may view all their previous peer assessment activities through the Xorro Plus Dashboard. Xorro Plus enables the student to provide authoritative evidence supporting how their teamwork capabilities have been established and, hopefully, improved over successive participation in peer assessed team projects throughout their academic studies.

Benefits for teachers

• A one stop shop for launching, managing, and reviewing Peer Assess Pro™ activities including previous activities
• Automated generation of a unique student-specific Peer Assess Pro™ Survey for all members of the student’s team including their self assessment
• Automated email communication to the students of the survey URL required for their completion of the assessment
• Warning alerts that provide prompts for actions the teacher can take to resolve the warning. For example, dispatch a proforma email to a student requiring them to reconsider and, optionally resubmit the survey if they were significantly over generous in assessing one team member when compared with other teammates’ assessments of that same team member
• Automated  email reminders to students to complete the survey despatched 72 hours, 24 hours and 12 hours before the Due Date for the assessment
• Mechanisms that reduce the chance of a students making errors in identifying the names of their correct team members. Furthermore, if a teacher makes a mistake, such as forgetting to include a student in a team, there is a recovery mechanism that impacts solely the students in the affected team(s) rather than the class as a whole

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

• Login to your Xorro Teacher’s Dashboard
• Navigate to the HOME tab
• Note Running Activities should now show your new activity
• Select your specific activity, such as: ‘My first trial’
• The Peer Assess Pro Teacher’s dashboard will display showing progress for that activity

Alternative method: ACTIVITIES: Running Activities

• Login to your Xorro Teacher’s Dashboard
• Navigate to the ACTIVITIES tab
• Select ‘Running Activities’
• Select the specific activity

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

• The following buttons have no relevance to creating and launching a Peer Assess Pro activity within Xorro:
• Create Participant - REASON: Unable to supply Team name or email FUTURE DEVELOPMENT required
• Add to Group - Unpredictable results. Copying a member from one group to another will probably NOT include the required team membership information.
• Gradebook - The Gradebook for Peer Assess Pro is generated within the Peer Assess Pro Dashboard
• Edit Participant - Unable to supply Team name or email FUTURE DEVELOPMENT required

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?

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, complete loss of all responses received to date

Apply this process when, for a launched, running peer assessment activity, you need to make these adjustments:

• Add a new member to a team
• Swap a team member to another team
• Correct the id or other details for a team member
• Add or delete a team

Key check points

• You must upload the entire teamset for all teams and all students you require in your running activity. ‘Entire’ means both adjusted AND the original unchanged data from your original teamset CSV.
• Good practice: edit a copy of the original teamset you used to create the CSV you used to launch the activity
• Make your adjustments to the copy of your original teamset.
• Before re-importing, check your new teamset to ensure that you have the correct number of unique teams and unique students that you expect.
• Do not upload the corrected teamset CSV to a Xorro group. That will have unpredictable effects.
• Re-import the adjusted CSV through the Team Composition selection of the Peer Assessment Running Activity dashboard. Detailed steps below.
• Note carefully that the notifications of adjustments match your expectation eg changed team name, email, whatever.

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

• Correct the Teamset Group File that was used to create the original peer assessment activity. That is, add team members, or swap the team members between teams.
• You may correct or add ids and email addresses.
• You may add new teams
• If you rename teams, then their responses to date will be nulled.
• DO NOT adjust the contents of the Column headed ‘group_code’ in your CSV file. It must match exactly the Group_code used to launch the original activity. That is, GDE105 in this example.
• Review the ‘Key check points’
• Re-Import the entire CSV for your class. Not just the changes.

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. There responses remain submitted and evident within Peer Assess Pro.

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?

Quick links and related information

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

• A team group list csv file already uploaded to Xorro Participants, titled BT101
• A Running Activity for peer assessment using the group BT101 where about half the participant team members have submitted. Note the Teacher’s Dashboard Warnings; the result statistics to date. Please DO NOT FINALISE this activity! Please do not adjust the composition of group BT101 in any csv file you upload
• A FINALISED activity where no more responses can be incorporated nor adjustments made to Team Results, Publication Status or Calculation of Personal Result method. (xxx to come xxx)

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

View an existing imported Group

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

• Recreate the Team Members Group CSV file
• Load then import the Team Members file according to

Section 2. Launch Peer Assessment Activity

Note that the data loaded from the TeamSet CSV operates according to these rules

• 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.
• 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.
• Note that team membership is Group specific.
• 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!

If a peer assessment activity is launched and running then you cannot update team membership details.  You must use the FAQ below. 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.

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

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

Definitions and features of calculation methods used in Peer Assess Pro

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

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

• Adjustments to compensate more strongly team members who have contributed significantly to their teams, and under-reward team members who are peer assessed as weak contributors
• Incorporating a team result, based on grading of a team’s delivered outputs, such as reports and presentations

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 can 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.

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

• When they can undertake the peer assessment survey
• When they can view provisional and finalised results
• If they are required to consider resubmitting a response

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:

• A unique Participants URL is generated that identifies the assessment survey that your class will complete
• The Participants URL is emailed automatically to all students in the class immediately the Start Date for the activity is reached. The email includes details such as: activity title, group_id, teacher name, the due date for completion, and the date when the assessment becomes available for completion. The teacher specified this data when the peer assessment activity was launched and created in the Xorro Teacher’s dashboard
• The student must login via the URL supplying the identification code, id specified in the Team List Group of participants associated with the creation of this peer assessment activity
• Students undertaking the assessment are sent further emails including the same activity-specific Participants UR when interim and Finalised results are published. Furthermore, they receive additional emails when required. Some emails are initiated by action of the teacher, whilst others are generated automatically. For instance, participants automatically receive a reminder at 72 hours, 24 hours, and 12 hours before the due date if they have NOT completed a submission.
• The Peer Assess Pro Log shows a record of all emails sent. *** UNDER DEVELOPMENT ***

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 directly from your Teacher’s Dashboard

xxx UNDER DEVELOPMENT xxx

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 you used to create the activity
• You will see a variety of screens, depending on the state of the peer assessment 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:

• The Activity Start Date has passed
• The Activity has NOT been Finalised by the Teacher
• The Student has NOT submitted their responses to the Survey.

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:

• The Activity Start Date has passed
• The date is within two weeks of the activity being Finalised by the Teacher.
• The Student has submitted their responses to the Survey.
• The teacher has Published results updated to include the student’s response
• At least one half of the team members have submitted a response, with at least three submissions required.

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

The student views

• Their Personal Result, Team Result and Peer Assessed Score
• A spider chart showing their self assessment compared with the class average, and the ratings by others in their team
• Qualitative remarks about Task and Leadership Contribution, and areas for future development

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

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?

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

• Mismatched self-assessment: A team member's self-assessment is materially different from the peer assessment given by their team
• Outlier individual rating: A team member has assessed another team member very differently than the other team members.
• At risk team member: A team member has been rated amongst the lowest in class
• Low quality team rating: A team may have engaged unconstructively with peer assessment

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

• You have adjusted the values for one or more Team Results
• You have adjusted the method of calculation for the Personal Result
• You are about to Publish results to students
• You are about to Download statistics
• You are about to Finalise the peer assessment activity
• New survey responses have been received by Xorro, but they have not yet been transferred into the Peer Assess Pro database. If in doubt, Refresh!

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

• Select Refresh
• Optionally adjust Team Results
• Select Peer Assess Pro in the Xorro Teachers Dashboard
• Select Recalculate
• Optionally, select an alternative Personal Result method of calculation
• Confirm 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: 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

Example Peer Assessment Survey: Qualitative

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:

• Since each rating is on a scale of 1 through 5, then 1 must be deducted from each rating to give a scale of zero through 4.
• The scale factor (100/40 = 2.5) achieves the required range of zero through 100 for the calculated PA Score.

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