Discussion peer review

[tchilt]

There is contradictory and confusing information in the guide about automatically assigning peer reviews in discussions: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-automatically-assign-peer-reviews-for-a...

At the top of the guide, it says:

"If you automatically assign peer reviews, Canvas will assign peer reviews to students automatically once they have submitted their own discussion reply."

This does not seem to be true in practice. If this is true, students will be assigned a peer review after they have submitted a reply. This assumes other students have submitted replies to peer review. What happens for the first student who replies? When do they get their peer reviews assigned?

In practice, peer reviews are assigned on the due date or on the date specified in the "Reviews Due" field.

Later in the guide, regarding the "Reviews Due" field, it says:

"In the Reviews Due field, use the calendar icon to select a date or manually enter a date for when peer reviews will be assigned to students [2]. If left blank, Canvas will use the discussion due date."

This says that peer reviews will be assigned on the date in the "Reviews Due" field. If correct, this field is mislabeled. Is this date when peer reviews are due? Or is this date when peer reviews are assigned?

What is the expected functionality? When are peer reviews assigned? Is it at the due date? Or is it after students submit a discussion reply? Or is it at the date indicated in the "Reviews Due" field (which is the due date if left blank)? If peer reviews are assigned on the date in the "Reviews Due" field, how does one specify a due date for students to finish their peer reviews?

[tchilt · Accepted solution]

I finally received an answer back from Canvas support. "Reviews Due" does not mean the due date for peer reviews. It means the date at which peer reviews are assigned to students. If "Reviews Due" is left blank, peer reviews are assigned on the due date for the discussion. There is no way to assign a due date by which students should complete their peer reviews.

Canvas UI designers, please rename the "Reviews Due" field to describe the actual function of the field.

Hopefully this helps someone who has the same question.

[Chris_Hofer]

@tchilt ...

Thanks for coming back here to your posting to provide an update!

If you would like to see changes in Canvas to make things easier to understand, you'll need to submit a new idea here in the Community.  (This is just one of the ways that Instructure gathers ideas from us, by the way.)  That way, your idea has a chance to be evaluated and maybe even have an opportunity to be voted on at some point.  You'll want to read through the documentation under the heading "Ideas and Themes" located at this link:

Instructure Community Guide - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

I hope this will help a bit.  Thanks again for circling back to provide an update.

[WillGHampton]

Were you able to make this suggestion as suggested below? This is a great suggestion that should be implemented.

[tchilt]

I did today: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Ideas/Rename-the-Reviews-Due-field-in-Peer-Reviews/idi-p/6...

I'm not sure why an "Idea" is required to fix an interface flaw, but there it is if you want to vote on it.

[cliff_cunningha]

Thank you, @tchilt, for pressing this point. We just discovered this labeling inconsistency. And, yeah! This is kinda weird to have the same functionality called two different things in different locations in the software.

While we're at it... why doesn't Instructure make the "Peer Review" interface look the same... whether in an assignment or a discussion? For example: (see attached images)