How do Review-Based assignments work?

Perusall offers three types of Review-Based assignments to facilitate peer learning and structured feedback:

•  Peer review assignment 
•  Fishbowl review assignment 
•  Instructor review assignment

These assignments allow students to upload work independently, which peers then evaluate using custom rubrics, overall feedback, and in-text comments. Once the review phase ends, the assignment opens back up so authors can read their feedback and reply to comments to continue the academic discussion.

The stages of Review-Based assignments

Each Review-Based assignment progresses through four sequential stages. All participants move through these stages together based on the deadlines you configure.

• In the Submission phase, authors submit their initial work. Students can upload documents with the following formats:

  • PDF
  • Word document or PowerPoint
  • Images
  • Source code or text file
  • Video links (supported formats outlined here)
  • Webpages

  Student experience 

  Students can view the assigned rubric requirements on this page before they upload.

  • After a successful upload, students can click Preview my submission to verify their files.
  • They will receive a confirmation email with the subject line: "Your submission for [assignment title] is complete!" * Students can continually re-upload documents to overwrite their files until the submission deadline passes. Once it passes, they lose access to their document until the final stage.

  
  
  Instructor actions 

  Track student uploads in real-time using the Submission progress tracker on the assignment page.

  • During this phase (and the subsequent review phase), you can manually click +Add submission on behalf of a student to mitigate any student technical or upload issues. Students still receive automatic credit for the Submission scoring component for documents submitted on their behalf.

  

• During Review of submissions, reviewers log in to evaluate their assigned peer documents.

  Student experience (reviewers)

  Reviewers complete three primary activities while reading their assigned files:

  • In-text comments: Highlight specific text or figures within the document to leave targeted feedback.

  • Rubric scoring: Assign scores based on your criteria.

  • Overall feedback: Type a comprehensive summary for the author.

  Authors will not be able to access their document with reviewer feedback until the Author review and response stage.

  

  If you’re creating an Instructor review assignment, this stage and its function will be your Instructor review period.

  Instructor actions 

  For Peer review or Fishbowl review assignments: Navigate to Course Home > Assignments and click your assignment to monitor live Student review progress. Here you can view a list of Submission authors, Reviewers, and the number of submitted reviews.

  • You can see a list of Students without completed submissions (who haven't submitted rubrics yet) and click Edit reviewers to manually adjust or reassign pairs.
  • Use Find submissions in Library to be directed to the upload folder that has been auto-created and populated with submissions from your specific Review-Based Assignment.
    

• The Instructor review period (only seen in Peer review and Fishbowl review assignments), gives you an opportunity to audit student progress, leave your own guidance, and moderate peer feedback before it reaches the authors.

  Students will not have access to the assignment or their documents during this stage. The assignment is effectively "paused" for them while you review their work.

  How to access and moderate reviews:

  1. Navigate to Course Home > Assignments and select your review-based assignment.

  2. Select a student from the dropdown menu to view their perspective. You will see their document with highlighted text showing in-text comments from their reviewers, alongside the submitted Rubric scores and Overall feedback.

     

  You can moderate reviews using the follow options within the Include this review toggle:

  • Include this review means that when this assignment moves to the next stage, the author will see the reviewer’s submitted Rubric scores and Overall feedback.
  • Hide feedback from author includes the Rubric as part of the submission’s score, but hides the Overall feedback from the author.
  • Suppress this review excludes the Rubric from the submission’s score, and hides it completely from the author.

  If you’d like to skip this period, enable Omit instructor review period when creating your assignment. 

• During the Author review and response stage, students gain access to the scores and comments entered by their reviewers. Authors’ replies to in-text comments left by their reviewers earn credit toward the Authors responding to in-text comments component.
   

  

Setting up a Review-Based Assignment

• To create a Review-Based Assignments, navigate to the Assignments tab of your course, select Add assignment, and then choose your desired assignment type from the three options listed above.

• Under Basics, name the assignment and set the deadlines for each stage in chronological order. 
   

  

  For Fishbowl review assignments, make sure to select Students assigned to upload materials before moving on to the next step. These students will be assigned to upload materials only, with the remaining students assigned to review submissions. Authors won't be required to review any submissions.

  Late submission settings

  Selecting Allow late submissions (not available for Fishbowl or Instructor review assignments) prompts two fields:

  • Set a late deadline: shortens the review time for late uploads. 
  • Apply a penalty: set a deduction between 0–100% for late submissions.
  • Skip instructor review: Enable Omit instructor review period to release peer rubrics and feedback immediately after the review stage. (You can still moderate grades later via Grade assignment).
• Under Rubric, choose a Rubric for evaluation of submissions from the dropdown, create a new one, or select Qualitative feedback only (no rubric) to remove it. (Learn more about customizing your rubrics.) 
  • Enable Do not ask reviewers to provide overall feedback if you don’t want to require students to submit Overall feedback. Students will still be required to submit in-text comments.

• Under Options, specify further details, such as instructions for students, assignment availability, who should receive the assignments, and your policy regarding anonymity.
   

  

• Under Scoring, select your Scoring template for this assignment from the dropdown, or create a custom one. (Learn more about scoring templates.)

Reviewing Scores & Analytics

You can review individual student Rubric scores within the context of the assignment by clicking Open. You can also view each student’s scoring breakdown, including all scoring components, by clicking Grade assignment.  

• Engagement Metrics

  Within engagement metrics, you can see how the students scored based on each scoring metric used in your scoring template. Learn more about how each scoring component works. 
  
  You can also view/manage Rubric submissions and Overall feedback from assigned reviewers directly in this window.

  
   

  Learn more about what analytics are available for Review-Based Assignments.

• Overall feedback submitted on others work

  View the Overall feedback submitted by the student on documents they were assigned to review.

• In-text comments submitted on others’ work

  Similar to highlights and comments in a Standard assignment, you can view in-text comments submitted by the student on documents they were assigned to review.

• Comments submitted in response to reviews

  View the student’s replies to their reviewers’ in-text comments on their submission.