Peer Reviews

Some assignments in OptiLearn are peer-assessed — instead of (or in addition to) your instructor grading, your classmates review each other's work. If you're enrolled in a course with peer-assessed assignments, you'll occasionally be asked to review submissions from classmates and you'll have your own work reviewed in return.

How it works

When you submit a peer-assessed assignment, the system waits until enough classmates have also submitted, then automatically picks 2 or 3 of them to review your work. At the same time, you'll be assigned 2 or 3 of their submissions to review.

You'll know peer review is involved when you see a "Peer assessed" badge on the assignment. After you submit, your status is "Awaiting peer review" until your reviewers finish.

Your review queue

Click Peer Reviews in the sidebar to open your queue at /peer-reviews. The page has four tabs:

• To do — reviews you've been assigned and haven't started or submitted yet
• Submitted — reviews you've already turned in
• Flagged — reviews you escalated to your instructor (rare)
• All — everything in one list

The "To do" tab shows a count badge in the sidebar — that's how many reviews are waiting on you. Try to clear them within a day or two so the original student isn't blocked waiting on their grade.

Reviewing a submission

Click any review in your queue to open it. You'll see four sections:

Assignment instructions

The same instructions the author saw — read these so you know what was being asked for.

The submission

The classmate's text response and any uploaded files. You won't see their name — submissions are anonymous to reviewers, on purpose. Focus on the work, not who made it.

The rubric

If the assignment has a rubric, score each criterion in the input boxes. The aggregate score appears at the bottom and updates as you fill criteria in. If there's no rubric, you'll see a single score box for the assignment's max points.

Feedback

A textarea where you write comments. The author will see your written feedback alongside their grade — write something useful.

When you're done, hit Submit review. You can also Save draft and come back later, or Flag as inappropriate if something's seriously wrong (more on that below).

Anonymity

The system protects anonymity in both directions:

• The author never sees who reviewed them — your name is not attached to your review
• You never see whose work you're reviewing — the API doesn't even send the author's name

This works because reviews are about the work itself. Knowing who wrote it would bias scoring — anonymity makes peer review fairer for everyone.

The one exception is the flag flow. If you flag a submission, your name is shared with the instructor (only the instructor) so they can investigate. The other student still doesn't see who flagged them.

Writing a fair review

Peer review is genuinely hard the first few times. Here's a starter recipe:

1. Read the instructions twice before opening the submission. Know the bar.
2. Read the rubric before assigning any scores. Decide what each criterion means in your head.
3. Skim the submission first — don't score on a first read.
4. Read it again carefully and score each criterion against the rubric. Don't anchor on a single feature.
5. Write feedback that calls out one strength and one concrete suggestion. "Your thesis is clear; the conclusion could tie back to it more directly" beats "okay essay."
6. Avoid generalisations. "Good" or "bad" with no detail isn't helpful.

When to flag

The Flag button is for genuine problems, not for disagreement. Flag a submission if:

• It's the wrong assignment (e.g. someone uploaded code instead of an essay)
• It contains inappropriate, offensive, or hateful content
• It looks like clear plagiarism
• It's spam or unrelated material

Flagging skips the scoring step and routes the submission straight to your instructor for review. Don't flag because you disagree with the work — that's what the score and feedback fields are for.

Tips

• Treat reviews like you'd want yours treated. Specific, kind, on-topic.
• Don't try to be clever. If the rubric says "5 points for a clear thesis statement," score the thesis statement. Don't penalise for things the rubric doesn't ask about.
• Aim for the middle. Most submissions are somewhere in the middle of the rubric. If you find yourself scoring everyone 10/10 or everyone 2/10, take another look.
• Write feedback even when you give a high score. Praise that names what was strong is teaching too.

Related

• Submitting assignments — the original submission flow
• Notifications — peer-review-related alerts you'll see