How to assign peer review for an assignment (Instructors) – UC San Diego Extended Studies Online

Peer reviews in Canvas allow students to engage in meaningful feedback and reflection by reviewing their peers' work. This fosters collaboration, reinforces learning objectives, and helps students develop critical thinking and communication skills within the course.

Instructions for using Peer Reviews are at the bottom of this page. Click the following link to jump to the Directions for Assigning and Viewing Peer Reviews and Activity.

⚠️ Please review the important details below about settings requirements so that you have a smoother experience assigning peer reviews in Canvas.

Instructional Designer’s Notes on Peer Reviews

While Canvas’ Peer Review tool offers valuable opportunities for student collaboration and peer-to-peer learning, it can be challenging to use effectively. Even when configured correctly, the tool may not behave as expected due to less-visible system rules and limitations. Our team is aware of these quirks and is familiar with the settings, behaviors, and common pain points, which is why we have created this article to help you use Peer Reviews in your course.

Pre-Course Setup

Please familiarize yourself with the Peer Review functionality and common pain points/tricky settings before your course starts. Reach out to Instructor Excellence for assistance with setup (ext-instructorexcellence@ucsd.edu). Note: It is difficult to fix a peer review assignment that was set up improperly once students have already submitted work. Please be proactive in learning about this tool and seeking guidance/assistance in setting up peer reviews.

When Can Students Begin Peer Reviewing?

Peer reviews are available from the the Due Date of the given assignment and no earlier. Students cannot complete a peer review until they have both submitted their assignment and the Due Date has passed.

If a student has not submitted the assignment (or submits after the due date), the student will not be automatically assigned a peer review—you must assign one manually.

Automatic Assignment Timing

By default, peer reviews are assigned on the assignment's due date.

You can also configure Canvas to automatically assign peer reviews after the due date has passed by selecting a specific date and time.

Critical Considerations for Auto-Assign:

Peer reviews are only assigned to students who have already submitted their assignments by the scheduled assignment time (e.g., July 12^th at 11:59 p.m.).

If no one has submitted by the auto-assign time, no reviews will be assigned.
If only 50% or fewer students have submitted, only those students will be included in the peer review pairing.
If the due date is still in the future, peer reviews will not be assigned, and the system will silently do nothing.
In courses where 20–40% of students submit late, the automatic process frequently fails to assign peer reviews to the full class.

🔔 Notifications

When a peer review is assigned, students can view a notification in their Dashboard To Do sidebar or Activity Stream.

Students also receive an email notification when a peer review is assigned.

📝 Grading

Peer reviews do not receive a grade by default.
If you want to award points for completing a peer review, create a separate "No Submission" assignment in the Gradebook and assign points manually.
The Peer Review page for the assignment will show which students have completed their assigned peer reviews.
Students can view peer review comments even if grades are hidden.
Instructor comments are only visible after grades are posted.

👥 Groups

Peer reviews can be used with group assignments.

To do so, check the "This is a Group Assignment" option when setting up the assignment.

Do not enable intra-group reviews for group assignments if there is only one submission per group; otherwise, students may be assigned their own paper for peer review.