peerScholar

Monitor Student Progress in peerScholar

PeerScholar is an external tool that you need to load to monitor student progress.

In your Canvas course menu, click on Assignments
In the list of peerScholar Assignments that appears, click your choice.
Below the assignment you chose, click Load peerScholar Assignment in a new window.
The peerScholar interface will load an Overview dashboard. See the tabs below the image for description of each part of the dashboard.

A. Navigation
B. Dashboard Control
C. Activity Settings
D. Grading
E. Activity Completion
F. Activity Schedule

Navigation

If you do not see the Navigation tile, widen your web browser window or click the horizontal lines next to the peerScholar logo at the top left of the screen.

At top left of the dashboard, click Activities.
A page will open listing all your peerScholar activities in the course.
At right of Activities, click the up/down arrow.
A list of activities will appear.
Click the activity of your choice.
The activity will load in the page. Each activity type is represented by a unique icon:
1. An orange icon with one person displayed represents a Classic activity.
2. A blue icon with two people displayed represents a Case Study activity.
3. A purple icon with three dots represents a Group activity.
Click Students.
Your students will list.
Note that if the total number of students does not match that in Canvas, it is because student accounts are created in peerScholar only when each student first clicks on the link in one of your Canvas peerScholar assignments.
Click Teaching Team.
A list of Instructors and TAs in your course appears.
Note that TAs need to click the assignment link in Canvas to list, similar to student accounts as mentioned in the previous note.
Click Gradebook.
Student grades list for all of your course peerScholar activities.
Click History.
Details of Course Actions list for all users within your course.

Dashboard Control

At the top of the page is the Dashboard Control tile. This tile controls which tiles display on the remainder of the page.

Toggle the Show Activity slider.
If the toggle is grey, the activity is hidden from students. Toggling to blue publishes the activity to students in peerScholar.
By default, the Overview tab displays, with tiles A-F below (as shown above).
Click Student Progress & Grading.
This reveals a list of students with activity progress details.

There are many additional controls on this page:
1. Click the lines next to any column title to filter or sort the data.
2. Click any student status to manually change the status, allow late access, or reset the phase for that student.
3. Click View Distribution to see the activity distribution for the Assess Phase: a table showing peer assessment assignment which can be toggled between assessments given, and assessments received.
4. Click the vertical dots for several export/download options, as shown here:
5. Click on a status under Grades to bring up a detailed assignment grading page. Grading is not covered in this document.
Click on Analytics to view overall analytics for the assignment, including graphs of the total completion rate and grade distribution, and a table of recent actions within the activity. (In the sample shown here, no grades have yet been assigned).

Activity Settings

The Activity Settings tile summarizes information about the activity and gives access to edit the activity settings.

At top right is the name of the type of activity as well as a brief summary of the activity instructions.
Below the activity type is a summary of the activity settings. These can be changed by clicking on Edit (5).
Click the Preview icon to see what it looks like from the student perspective.
Click the trashcan icon to delete the activity. You will get a warning telling you that this action is irreversible.
Click the pencil to edit the activity. This allows you to edit all activity settings.
Click the bar chart icon to create fully customizable data exports as CSV files.

Grading

The Grading tile allows you to customize grading settings as well as grade assignments.

Toggle the Show Grades slider to blue to allow students to see their grades. If the toggle is grey, the grades are hidden from students.
Click Edit Grading to edit the grading settings. See peerScholar.com Grading for details.
Click Grade Now to grade individual assignments.

Activity Completion

The Activity Completion tile provides an overview of the status for each phase of the activity.

The number inside each circle indicates the percentage of students who have completed that phase. The phase enclosed within a box is the current phase of the activity. In this example, the students are in the Assess phase, and 1/3 students have completed this phase.

Activity Schedule

The Activity Schedule tile provides an overview of the schedule for each phase of the activity. Click Edit Dates to adjust the schedule.

For more information, please see Managing an Activity (YouTube video)

Contact ctl.helpdesk@ubc.ca to arrange a consult to set up peerScholar for your specific needs.

UBC Okanagan Centre for Teaching and Learning peerScholar Directory

Updated June 2021