For those unfamiliar, Buddycheck is an online peer assessment tool integrated into Canvas that helps instructors manage groupwork. Students can review their teammates’ contributions, providing a weighting factor to adjust individual grades based on participation and effort. This enhances the fairness and learning around group projects.
The Buddycheck team is always improving the system, and there are two exciting new options for instructors using peer reviews:
Custom Rating Scales
Previously the only option was a scale from 1-5 when students assessed their group members. Many asked for more flexibility, so now tutors can choose between a variety of scales for students to select from:
- 1-5
- 1-7
- 1-10
- Custom numeric scale
The custom rating scales functionality enables setting different point ranges for different evaluation questions, permitting tutors to make some aspects of the groupwork as more significant than others.
Score Management
Tutors now have more refined control to manage outlier scores students may give their teammates. You can “mute” certain scores on a student’s given or received reviews. Muting excludes it from the grade adjustment calculations, preventing skewed results from unfair ratings.
Access the score management tools while viewing the evaluation results. You can choose specific ratings to mute rather than removing the entire review.
With easier scale configuration and more precise score handling, Buddycheck provides robust options for fair groupwork assessment. Take advantage of these new features for your next peer review project!