Moodle Forums can be used for students to provide feedback on a fellow students' individual work or collaborative work by a group of students. You can use forums for peer assessment in three different ways.
Ratings can be an effective way to encourage peer assessment. The aggregate type defines how ratings are combined to form the final grade in the gradebook. Ratings can be set up with a single option scale. This lets you to set up a scale for students to indicate forum posts that they 'Like'. If No ratings is selected, then the activity will not appear in the gradebook.
Scenario 1: Set up forums for students to assess the individual work of specific students
Students are put into separate groups and the students in each group assess the work of other students in their group. For example, groups of two can be created where students work in pairs and assess the work of their partner, or groups of four can be created where each student assesses the individual work of the other three members of the group.
Scenario 2: Set up forums for a group of students to assess the work of specific groups of students
Forums are used for a group of students to review the work of other groups of students. The lecturer puts students into groups and starts a discussion for each group. One member of each group is selected to post the group's work on behalf of the group. Then the group assesses the work of other groups.
Scenario 3: Set up forum for individual students to assess the work of all other students.
The lecturer creates one forum where all students can view the contributions from all of their classmates. Students can reply and rate all the answers to the forum.
When a post is rated by more than one student, the rating displayed is calculated by the aggregate type that you selected in the forum grading > Grade > Scale settings, and the number of students who have provided their rating is shown in brackets after the rating. Select the rating to display a pop-up which shows the breakdown of this rating. A scale rating may show as a number, depending on the aggregation method selected, but selecting the rating will display the actual rating selections.
Create groups to allocate peer review. If you want to restrict the number of groups who will review each group, you must set up groupings and have multiple forums, one for each grouping. See our Manage Groups guide for more information on setting up groups and groupings. If you change the setting after the deadline, this will open the forum up for all to comment and not just another group. For example if there were 4 groups in a class, you would need a forum restricted to groups A and B and another restricted to groups C and D so only members of one other group can comment when the forum is opened up.
Post one message to each group in order to initiate the discussion.
After the deadline, change the forum type to Standard forum. Standard forum allows students who have not posted to see and reply to the posts.
Change the Group Mode to No groups to allow students in the other group to view the replies and comment. Groups can assess the work of other groups by replying to a post. Each group should choose one student to submit on behalf of their group.
Override student permissions to allow them to rate submissions to the forum.
Once rating has been enabled, students will see a Rate option after all posts and replies in the discussion except their own. They award a rating either up to a maximum point or based on the scale you selected in the Forum scale settings. Students can rate more than one post at a time by entering their selected rating against several of the posts in the discussion.
When a post is rated by more than one student, the rating displayed will be determined by the aggregate type that you selected in the Forum Scale settings, and the number of students who have provided their rating is shown in brackets after the rating. Selecting the rating opens a pop-up which shows the breakdown of this rating.
