a powerful collaboration tool
for student teams
to develop career-ready team skills
Download our PeerAssessment.com Brochure
Taking Student Team Collaboration to a New Level
An online platform for peer assessment of team member participation and contribution
a powerful collaboration tool
Dear Colleague,
For three decades I’ve beeen facilitating and researching teams, while teaching IT with student teams at Boise State. I strongly believe that collaborative learning is one of the most powerful pedagogies available for college students.
Too frequently, however, team dynamics poison the experience. Peer Assessments could overcome the problems if students could learn from the feedback, but manually reassembling that data into individual reports takes too much time. That experience led me to design PeerAssessment.Com, helping students to grow their team skills while it cut my workload.
PeerAssessment.Com improves student team success in three ways by supporting:
- Individual Accountability for team members (i.e. grading individual contribution)
- Team Dynamics Monitoring by the instructor, who can intervene when necessary
- Rich Peer Feedback for students to improve their team skills
PeerAssessment.Com is peer assessment done right: it automates the peer assessment process, making it easier to hold more frequent peer assessments that return real feedback to students so they can improve their team skills. Prepare a peer assessment for your entire class in under 5 minutes. Then PeerAssessment.Com takes care of the rest; collecting and distributing the feedback to students, plus preparing a grading sheet for you.
Please give PeerAssessment.Com a try, and unlock the potential of your student learning teams. Simply Sign In and Register an account, and receive a free class trial. Or contact me directly, I look forward to working with you.
Dr. Rob Anson
Email: RobAnson@PeerAssessment.Com Phone: 208.869.2801
Social Director and Founder of Hot Rocks Consulting and PeerAssessment.Com
& Professor Emeritus of Information Technology Management
College of Business and Economics, Boise State University
Benefits
Efficient
- Set up and run peer assessments in minutes
- Quick copy questions and/or emails from a past class to a new one
- System manages student invites and reminders for you
Flexible
- Ask the questions you want to ask
- Ask peer-team-class level assessment and feedback questions
- Administer on individual department or institutional levels
- Extend assessment periods as needed
Supporting
- Take your pick: Face to Face or Online
- Reorganize teams between assessments
- Support co-instructors and TAs
- Give students something productive to do with their smartphones
Empowering
- Free up instructor time
- Facilitate iterative assessment cycles to monitor and address team dynamics issues
- Create a feedback loop for students to adjust and learn from their own team actions
Reports
- One-click student grading spreadsheet
- Automatically distribute personalized peer feedback to students
- Download data for analysis or research
Testimonials
"The best tool out there to understand how a team is working." ~Dr. Saurabh Gupta, Associate Professor of Information Systems, Kennesaw State University
“”PeerAssessment.Com is a great individual and team tool to improve and acknowledge participation, production levels, personality conflicts and successful project outcomes.
Christy Suciu, MBA
Lecturer in Management, Boise State University
“”PeerAssessment.Com provides an easy to use tool that takes the work out of assessing the overall performance of teams as well individual contributions of team members on group assignments. I plan to use it for all of my team projects!
Jim Kroes, Ph.D.
Professor, Supply Chain Management, Boise State University
“”PeerAssessment.Com has been immensely helpful for my students to give safe and constructive feedback to their team peers. I appreciate the direct delivery of results to individual students.
Katherine Johnson, Ph.D.
Clinical Associate Professor of Mathematics, Boise State University
“”This tool saves tons of time for instructors.
Shelli Poole, PhD, PMP, MBB
Associate Clinical Professor, School of Nursing, Boise State University
“”PeerAssessment.com is a great way for students to give feedback and get results promptly. I've tried paper, Google Forms and Qualtrics. This is by far the easiest way for peers to give feedback and discover problems. Students find system is easy to use. They can see all the feedback in one place and use it to improve their performance. The whole campus should adopt this tool.
Caile Spear, PhD, MCHES, FAAHE
Professor of Community and Environmental Health, Boise State University
“”Use of PeerAssessment.Com can trigger needed discussions among team members, facilitating the development of shared expectations.
Chris Baughn, Ph.D.
Professor of Management, Boise State University
“”PeerAssessment.Com helps discourage social loafing, and if it does occur, students are empowered to influence the grade outcomes.
Janet Stephens, Ph.D.
Lecturer in Managment, Boise State University
“”Extremely useful tool for any course with group assignments or projects. Easy distribute and collect information you need regarding peer performance--this Fall I launched five peer assessments in each class. Plenty of options available for questions and scales, and reporting helps assess individual grades on team projects. I highly recommend this tool!
Joanna Gabler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Marketing, Boise State University
“”PeerAssessment.Com is an important tool to get quantitative and qualitative data about each student's performance in online group work assignments &discussion boards. I am very thankful that my program is really digging-in to get this kind of data so students and teachers can reflect upon individual behaviors in group situations.
Betty Miller
Manager, Online Faculty/Technology, School of Nursing Boise State University
“”PeerAssessment.Com helped me do a final assessment of individual class participation and major project engagement. It's made a difference in cases where I could not determine if a student who seemed to know it all and spoke enthusiastically was really the team leader or not. Sometimes they were trying to make up for not participating or engaging earlier in the project.
Anthony Martinez
Lecturer in Managment, Boise State University
Academic Pricing
(including Educational Institutions and Non-Profits)
PeerAssessment.Com Price List
Pricing is by the class section, with significant savings for larger quantities or smaller classes. Classes are easily shared among instructors. Also, they do not expire, so when you run out, simply use Refill to add more.
The Price List took effect on May 20, 2019. The new pricing will include:
- Prices start at $25 per class section, with discounts for larger quantities
- Additional 30% off for small “Seminar-Sized” classes (18 students or under)
- Campus site licenses also available
- Unlimited students per class* (over 100 students is charged for a 2nd class)
- Up to 12 assessments within a class
Ready to purchase classes to get started? Simply create an account and log in, then press “Purchase Plan”.
Instructions for Purchasing Classes
About Us
PeerAssessment.Com is a product of Hot Rocks Consulting L.L.C., owned by Rob Anson. It was designed by Rob Anson and developed by Aaron Day at Thrive Web Design, in Boise Idaho. This tool would be no more than a bygone dream were it not for Aaron’s artistic and technical genius, let alone his infinite patience.
Dr. Rob Anson has three decades of facilitating and training groups as a consultant as well as a researcher. He just completed 27 years of teaching at Boise State University in Management Information Systems in the College of Business and Economics. While teaching technical topics and capstone project courses, student teams have usually been at the core of his approach. Rob’s background includes extensive consulting and research as a team meeting facilitator, using computerized and traditional techniques to assist hundreds of teams from business, government and nonprofit sectors.
Anson has consulted widely with various groups particularly in the areas of business process modeling, and project management, and has supported or led the implementation of eight campus-wide information systems at Boise State. He has published articles in journals such as Management Science, Journal of Small Group Research, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Journal of Educational Computing, and International Journal of Management Education. In addition to his faculty responsibilities at Boise State, Dr. Anson is proud to have served as the first Faculty Ombuds and the first Residential College Faculty in Residence.
PeerAssessment.Com Version 1.0 was hatched in 2009 as a Qualtrics – MS Access prototype, born out of frustration with paper-based peer assessments. In 2011, it was used to design Version 2.0 (nicknamed “PAS”)–a free, fully online version adopted by a growing number of instructors in various disciplines at Boise State and around the country. It became a mainstay for accreditation of programs within Nursing and Business, documenting learning outcomes related to team-skills.
In 2018, Version 3.0 represents a complete rewrite from the ground up. It was able to take advantage of numerous technology advancements to become fully mobile (for student aspects) and accessible. The new design added numerous new features to enhance efficiency for the instructor, provide needed flexibility to customize questions, add functionality to enable multiple instructors and campus-wide administration, plus it established a platform that could be easily and quickly extended.
Resource Library
Instructional and Research Resources
These resources are intended to assist you with improving the student teamwork in your classes and/or conducting Science of Teaching and Learning research.
I invite you to send resources you use in your classes for me to post here and share with others. Where you borrow items from others, please include a citation so that credit is appropriately expressed, and it is possible to follow up for more information.
Feedback Resources
To The Instructor:
Feedback is the core of a peer assessment–in workplace as well as educational teams. Constructive feedback, delivered with respect, can generate engagement and turn around an individual’s work behaviors. This is as true for the workplace as it is for our classroom teams. It boils down to this: the more we can strengthen our student’s ability to give constructive, respectful feedback to one another, the better prepared they will be to positively influence others in their education and careers.
To that end, this section includes various resources for high quality feedback:
- Tips for Giving Feedback to Your Peers–Brief whitepaper on giving quality feedback written–for your students.
- How to Give Feedback the Right Way–5 minute read from Impraise about how to write constructive feedback–for your students.
- The Power of Feedback–A major research article summarizing research on feedback in education used to aid student learning.
- Feedback Assessment Report–New report added to PeerAssessment.Com for instructors to evaluate feedback given by each student.
- How Atlassian Built an Award Winning Culture Using Feedback–Quick peek at a corporate culture based on feedback.
Download: Tips For Giving Feedback To Your Peers.pdf or Tips For Giving Feedback To Your Peers.docx
Anson, R (2020, PDF or DOCX). Tips for Giving Feedback to Your Peers. Whitepaper.
Description: This is a brief whitepaper written for students involved in educational team work who are asked to give feedback to their peers. It draws together best practices from various authors to help students recognize and author effective feedback for others.
You are welcome to distribute this whitepaper to your students. Or, feel free to download the .DOCX version and adapt it to your needs under your own name.
Access Link: How to Give Feedback the Right Way
Link to Summary Poster: How to construct meaningful feedback: C.O.I.N.
Impraise. (NA) How to give feedback the right way. Accessed on 1/24/20 from https://www.impraise.com/blog/how-to-give-feedback-the-right-way.
Description: This 5 minute read from Impraise is an excellent source for your students to learn a model for giving feedback! “Many people find giving constructive feedback daunting. If you remember to use the C.O.I.N formula, you can ensure you’re giving actionable, constructive feedback that will help your peers, manager or direct report improve their performance. You can use this Context – Observation – Impact – Next (C.O.I.N) formula to make both positive and constructive feedback more impactful, but since people find it more challenging to give constructive feedback, this is what we’re focusing on.”
Download: The Power of Feedback
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.
Abstract from The Power of Feedback:
“Feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement, but this impact can be either positive or negative. Its power is frequently mentioned in articles about learning and teaching, but surprisingly few recent studies have systematically investigated its meaning. This article provides a conceptual analysis of feedback and reviews the evidence related to its impact on learning and achievement. This evidence shows that although feedback is among t he major influences, the type of feedback and the way it is given can be differentially effective. A model of feedback is then proposed that identifies the particular properties and circumstances that make it effective, and some typically thorny issues are discussed, including the timing of feedback and the effects of positive and negative feedback. Finally, this analysis is used to suggest ways in which feedback can be used to enhance its effectiveness in classrooms.”
Sample Feedback Assessment Report (Includes actual student comments entered into PeerAssessment.Com, with names changed.)
The Feedback Assessment Report in PeerAssessment.Com captures responses to the open-ended questions–one Peer Assessment and three Team Assessment. All the responses that one student authored to their team and team members are displayed on one page. Within the PDF file, reports are sorted by author name.
This PDF report makes it easy to read and evaluate the feedback authored by each student. It can be used to assess and guide students to provide higher quality feedback to their team members.
A couple ideas for providing grades and/or feedback to students:
- Print off the report. You can handwrite suggestions and a grade on the paper to hand back.
- Open the report and your electronic gradebook/rubric grader in windows next to one another.
Article Link: How Atlassian built an award winning culture using feedback
Citation: Impraise. (NA) How Atlassian built an award winning culture using feedback. Accessed on 1/24/2020 from https://www.impraise.com/blog/how-atlassian-built-an-award-winning-culture-using-feedback
Description: Atlassian has built a thriving, award-winning, corporate culture using feedback as a cornerstone that we can learn from in our classroom. This 10 minute read talks about the foundations for a corporate culture of feedback. Atlassian believes that “peer reviews are an integral part of getting the whole picture when it comes to employee performance. […] When you involve your colleagues in your performance evaluation you cut through the competitiveness and elevate collaboration. This approach focuses on development, and strengthens the team.”
PeerAssessment.Com Information
PeerAssessment.Com Brochure–2 Pages (PDF, 1/10/2020) The brochure summarizes the key features and benefits of PeerAssessment.Com. It is in a front/back trifold format. For more information, please see the whitepapers on particular areas of the application and articles about its use on this page.
ONLINE ASSISTANCE: Please log in to PeerAssessment.Com and select HELP in the upper right corner.
DIRECT ASSISTANCE: You are welcome to contact me at any time for assistance with PeerAssessment.Com or its integration into your course pedagogy. Email: robanson@peerassessment.com Phone: (208) 869-2801
PeerAssessment.Com Reports (PDF 1/17/2020) This illustrates sample pages from the four main reports: Student, Instructor, Grade Report, and Feedback Assessment Report.
Question Library (Page Link, Updated 7/1/2019) There are a number of Question Sets that are ready for you to use. This page lists the available options, including the full set of questions, introduction, and citations.
Instructor and Student Views of the Questionnaire (PDF 9/22/2018) The purpose of this document is to help you, the instructor, map what you see during set-up to what your student’s will see filling out the assessment.
PeerAssessmentCom Class Purchasing Instructions(PDF, 7/25/2019) These instructions will walk you through purchasing class units for PeerAssessment.Com. The purchasing procedure can be done by either the instructor her/himself, or by another person on their behalf. In either case the purchaser will need to create an account in the system. After completing the purchase, please forward the program information to instructors who will need it to set up classes.
Peer Assessment Research
Citation: Anson, R., Poole, S. & Fairbanks, A. (2020) Developing Nursing Student Communication and Teamwork Skills: Automating Peer Assessment, RN Idaho, (accepted for publication in February 2020)
Description: This article examines the key role played by communication and teamwork in healthcare quality, and how peer assessments–using PeerAssessment.Com–can improve the teamwork skills of nursing students.
Download: A Peer Assessment System to Improve Student Team Experiences
Citation: Anson, R. & Goodman, J. (2014) A Peer Assessment System to Improve Student Team Experiences, Journal of Education for Business, 89:1, 27-34, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2012.754735
Abstract:
Groups are frequently used in courses, but there is substantial evidence that insufficient attention is paid to creating conditions for successful teamwork. One key condition is high-quality, individual, and team-level feedback. An online peer assessment system and team improvement process was developed for this test case based on three design criteria: efficient administration of the assessment, promotion of quality feedback, and fostering effective team processes. Sample data from 13 teams were collected to propose a means of testing PeerAssessment.Com against these criteria.
Groups are frequently used in courses, but there is substantial evidence that insufficient attention is paid to creating conditions for successful teamwork. One key condition is high-quality, individual, and team-level feedback. An online peer assessment system and team improvement process was developed for this test case based on three design criteria: efficient administration of the assessment, promotion of quality feedback, and fostering effective team processes. Sample data from 13 teams were collected to propose a means of testing PeerAssessment.Com against these criteria.
Download: Developing and Assessing College Student Teamwork Skills
Citation: Hughes, R. and Jones S. (2011). Developing and Assessing College Student Teamwork Skills, New Directions For Institutional Research, 149, 53-64. DOI: 10.1002/ir.380
Abstract: Some form of team-oriented work is employed in most, if not all, organizations today. It would seem, then, that an important role for higher education should involve developing critical teamwork skills among students so as to prepare them for success in life. This very point was highlighted in a 2009 poll conducted on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), in which 71 percent of employers said they wanted colleges to place greater emphasis on “teamwork skills and the ability to collaborate with others in diverse group settings.” Many studies, in fact, have identified teamwork as one of the most valued and necessary skills among college graduates. This article describes research on team member contributions to overall team effectiveness, and various applications of this research to developing and assessing teamwork by students on team and group projects and assignments.
Download: Improving the Effectiveness of Students in Groups With a Centralized Peer Evaluation System
Citation: Brutus, S., & Donia, M. (2010). Improving the effectiveness of students in groups with a centralized peer evaluation system. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 9(4), 652-662.
Abstract: We describe the impact of a centralized electronic peer evaluation system on the group effectiveness of undergraduate business students over a pair of semesters. Using a quasi-experimental design, 389 undergraduate students evaluated, and were evaluated by, their peers using a web-based system that captures peer evaluations in quantitative and qualitative formats and allows for the reception of anonymous feedback. Results show that the effectiveness of students, as perceived by their peers, increased over semesters. This effect could be directly linked to the use of the system. The results of this study underscore the benefit of centralizing peer evaluations for the assessment of important skills and their development in higher education. The implication of these results and possible avenues of research are detailed.