Peer comments

[AngelineLillard]

Tallying each student's total peer comments in response to submitted assignments across a semester

In a large lecture course, each student turns in a weekly essay, and is then assigned by Canvas two peer essays to comment on.

Credit is give for responding to X essays across the semester.

How can I get Canvas to tell me, for each student, how many essays they commented on all semester? I would like it to show up as a column in the gradebook, or alternatively I can download a csv file and merge it in my gradebook.

Thank you!

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

That's something I'd like to know too, @AngelineLillard. As you've discovered, it's not something that's automatically included in Canvas. There are two possibilities for a solution. One is to make a feature request, and there is a document describing this process:

 How do Ideas and Themes work in the Instructure Community? 

The other option is to ask this question in the Canvas Developers group, where it's more likely you'll be able to connect with a colleague who can provide a solution. I moved your question into this group, and I hope the awesome folks here will be able to help.

[sendres]

Hi @AngelineLillard,

Just to clarify, when you say "peer comment" are you referring to an assignment that uses the peer reviews feature?

If you know how to use the Canvas API, I would think this could be relatively straightforward. It would probably go something like this:

List all the students in the course (GET /api/v1/courses/:course_id/enrollments?type[]=StudentEnrollment).
Set up a data structure to hold tallies of "assigned" versus "completed" peer reviews for each student.
List all the assignments in the course (GET /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments).
For each assignment:
    List all its peer reviews (GET /api/v1/courses/:course_id/assignments/:assignment_id/peer_reviews).
    For each peer review:
        Read the reviewer's student ID and whether the review is "assigned" or "completed."
        Update your tally data structure accordingly.
Calculate the students' grades based on their "assigned" versus "completed" peer reviews.
Create a new assignment to record the students' grades.
Push the students' grades into the new assignment.

I haven't had the occasion to use the peer reviews API, so this could be a little rough, but I think something like this would work.