What is peer review?

In this following activity you will submit your first piece of research for peer review. In the activity you have the chance to learn from others, and engage in conversation about major engineering projects.

Peer review gives you the opportunity to review the work of another learner, with the assistance of a few basic guidelines. It involves evaluating and providing feedback on another learner’s work. Similarly, your work is assessed by one of your peers.

Peer assessment gives you greater insight into what the assessment criteria actually require. It also develops evaluative skills, which are useful in employment and lifelong learning. Through peer assessment you have the opportunity to engage with another peer in a meaningful way and help them develop their knowledge and understanding of a topic. Likewise, you will enhance your own learning through the peer review process.

The peer review process is designed to be informative and constructive. You should consider the type of feedback you would hope to receive on your work when writing feedback for other learners. Pay attention to the assessment criteria and try to provide a fair assessment of the work.

How does it work?

There are three steps involved in the peer review process.

1. Your assignment

You will first produce your own assignment. You will be presented with the research question and the criteria used to assess the piece of work. You will use these criteria to assess your peer's work and they will use it to assess yours. The text of your assignment will be submitted using a text input box in the peer assessment step. You are advised to save a copy of your work elsewhere for future reference. You have the option to save a draft copy of your work and preview the text before submission.

2. Reviewing your peer's work

After submitting your work, you will be presented with another learner’s assignment to mark. If your peers have not yet submitted their work you may need to return to this step once there is work for you to review. You will be presented with your peer's work and the assessment criteria. You are asked to grade their work using the criteria listed. You also have the option to leave comments for the learner. Remember that your comments should be designed to be constructive and guide the learner in making improvements to their work.

3. Your review

Once your work has been reviewed by a peer, you will be notified by email that a review is ready for you to read.

Coming up...

In the next section you will begin your peer review activity.