Peer Review using Moodle Workshop: Student reviews other student submissions

Published on: 05/09/2025 · Last updated on: 12/12/2025

Introduction

There are a variety of peer review scenarios available with Moodle Workshop.

Potential options:

• Student reviews submissions of other individuals
• Student reviews submissions of their group mates
• Student review generic Tutor-supplied submission

Students assess according to a criteria or rubric.

Review can be:

• Comment based only, or
• Comment based and grade, or
• Grade only

Review can be:

• Anonymous, or
• Non anonymous

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The Moodle Workshop is a powerful peer assessment activity, that can be used for individual peer review. Students add submissions which are then distributed amongst their peers for assessment based on a grading scale specified by the Teacher.

The Workshop has five phases:

1. Setup Phase:
   • Complete settings and assessment form.
2. Submission Phase:
   • Move to this phase to allow submissions which can be monitored via the Workshop dashboard.
3. Assessment Phase:
   • Students review assigned submissions using criteria or a rubric.
4. Grading Evaluation Phase:
   • Moodle calculates grades
   • Manually override grades or provide feedback if needed. Optionally publish exemplary submissions.
5. Closed Phase:
   • Finalise grades, and send grades to the Gradebook, to allow students to view grades and feedback.

Recommended Workflow – Students review other student submissions

These instructions guide a teacher through configuring a Workshop activity for peer reviews, where individual students review each others’ submissions, using criteria or a rubric. The setup supports comment-based only, comment-based with grades, or grade-based only reviews.

Step 1: Set up the Workshop Activity

This is the Setup Phase where the Teacher must add the Workshop, configure the settings and the assessment form. Students cannot interact yet.

Add Workshop:

• Navigate to the desired course section, click Add an activity or resource, select Workshop, and click Add.

General Settings

• Workshop name: Enter a descriptive name.
• Description: Provide clear instructions and tick Display description on course page if desired.

Configure Grading Settings

Grading Strategy

• In the Grading settings section, choose a strategy based on your review type. What you choose here determines the assessment form students will use and also the strategy for grading submissions. For more detailed descriptions see Grading Strategies.
  • Comments: Select for comment-based only reviews, allowing qualitative feedback without grades.
  • Accumulative grading: Each assessment criterion has its own numeric grade along with optional weighting and optional comments; a final grade is calculated on the basis of the separate grades and their respective weightings.
  • Rubric: Use for comment-based with grades or grade-based only, providing a matrix of descriptive levels with grades and optional comments.

Grade Settings

• Grade for submission: Set the maximum grade for the submitted work, e.g. 100.
• Grade for assessment: Set the maximum grade for the quality of the peer reviews, e.g. 20.
• Grade to pass: Optionally set a passing grade for submissions and/or assessments, linked to activity completion.
• Decimal places in grades: Choose precision (e.g., 0 for whole numbers, 2 for detailed scoring).

Submission Settings

• Instructions for submission:
  • Provide clear instructions and be specific about submission format, content, and expectations.
• Submission types:
  • Select Online text (for typed submissions) and/or File submission (e.g. Word or PDF). If students will submit mutilple files, set a Maximum number of submission attachments.
  • Specify allowed file types using the Choose button.
• Submission settings:
  • If you want to allow students to submit after the deadline, enable Late submissions but note that these require manual allocation for reviews.

Assessment Settings

• Instructions for assessment:
  • Provide clear guidelines for how you would like students to assess submissions. If feedback comments will be given, encourage constructive feedback.
• Feedback:
  • Enable Feedback comments for text-based feedback (required for comment-based or comment-with-grade strategies).
  • Optionally allow Feedback attachments (e.g., annotated files) and set limits.
• Self-assessment:
  • Optionally enable self-assessment if students should evaluate their own submission.

Availability Settings

• Set Deadlines:
  • Open for submission from: Set the start date for student submissions.
  • Submission deadline: Set the due date for submissions.
  • Open for assessment from: Set when peer reviews will begin.
  • Deadline for assessment: Set the due date for reviews.
  • Enable Switch to the next phase after the submissions deadline for automatic phase transition.
• Phase Control:
  • Manually switch phases or allow automatic transitions for smooth progression.

N.b. you may prefer to use manual switching to ensure all students are ready for the next phase. It is not possible to return to an earlier phase!

Common Module Settings

• Set Group Mode set to No Groups

Edit Assessment Form (Criteria or Rubric)

• Access the Form:
  • After saving settings, click Save and display, then select Edit assessment form from the Workshop homepage.
• Configure Based on Grading Strategy:
  • Comments (Comment-based only):
    • Add criteria with descriptions.
    • Students provide qualitative feedback without grades.
    • Click Save and preview, then Save and close.
  • Accumulative Grading (Comment-based with grades or grade-based only):
    • Add criteria (e.g., ‘Content Depth,’ ‘Presentation’) with descriptions.
    • Assign maximum points per criterion (e.g., 20 for Content, 10 for Presentation).
    • Enable comments for each criterion if desired.
    • Set weights for criteria if needed (e.g., Content weight = 2).
    • Click Save and preview, adjust, then Save and close.
  • Rubric (Comment-based with grades or grade-based only):
    • Choose Grid or List format.
    • Define criteria (e.g., ‘Project Structure,’ ‘Innovation’) and levels (e.g., for Structure: 5 – Excellent, 3 – Satisfactory, 0 – Poor).
    • Assign unique grades to each level.
    • Enable comments if desired.
    • Add more criteria as needed using Blanks for 2 more criteria.
• Test the Form:
  • Click Save and preview.
  • To test view as a student, enrol yourself in a group and use Switch role to… Student.

Additional Settings

1. Anonymity:
   • For peer assessment to be anonymous, you need to set permissions for your workshop activity to prevent ‘view author names’ and ‘view review names’ for students.
2. Configure Ouriginal
   • If desired for supporting materials, configure Ouriginal as desired.
3. Select Assessment category
   • Set to ‘Formative’ or ‘Summative’ as appropriate.
4. Activity Completion:
   • Set completion criteria if desired (e.g., students must receive submission and assessment grades).
5. Notifications:
   • You can use the News Forum or calendar reminders to notify students of deadlines and phase changes, as Moodle doesn’t do this automatically.
6. Example Submissions:
   • Provide example submissions for practice. Set Mode of examples assessment to voluntary or mandatory to familiarize groups with the assessment form.

Step 2: Allocate Submissions (Submission phase)

In the Submission phase, submissions are allocated for peer review manually, or randomly.

• Students should upload their submissions by the deadline.
• You will need to monitor submissions and send reminders as needed.
• There is no facility for individual extensions.

• Allocation Method:
  • In the Submission phase, allocate submissions for peer review:
    • Manual allocation: Assign specific submissions to other students for review.
    • Random allocation: Use random allocation, setting the number of reviews per submission (e.g., 2–3 students reviewing each submission).
  • Schedule random allocation to run automatically at the submission deadline if desired.
• Minimum Reviews:
  • A minimum allocation of 3 peer reviews is needed for calculations of the Assessment Grade (allocate each student at least 3 other submissions).

Step 3: Assessment Phase

• Enter the Phase:
  • Switch to Assessment Phase once allocations are complete.
• Key Actions:
  • Ensure allocations are complete.
  • Monitor progress; reallocate if needed.
• Student View:
  • Students access assigned submissions and use the assessment form (rubric/criteria) to provide comments, grades, or both based on strategy.
• Switch to Next Phase:
  • After the deadline, click Switch to the grading evaluation phase.

Step 4: Grading Evaluation Phase

• Enter the Phase:
  • Switch after assessments.
• Grade Calculation
  • Moodle calculates two grades for each student:
  • Grade for submission: This is calculated based on the peer assessments a student receives. The final grade is a weighted mean of the grades given by all reviewers, and a Teacher’s assessment can be given more weight.
  • Grade for assessment: This grade reflects the quality of a student’s peer reviews. Using an algorithm, Moodle compares each student’s assessment with the “best assessment” (the one closest to the average of all peer reviews) and assigns a grade based on how closely they match. 
  • Manually override grades/feedback if needed.
  • If desired, publish exemple submissions.
• Student View:
  • Students see their allocated reviews but can no longer edit them.
• Switch to Next Phase:
  • When grading is finalised, click Close workshop.

Step 5: Closed Phase

• Enter the Phase:
  • Switch after evaluation.
• Key Actions:
  • Send final grades to the Gradebook.
  • Add a Conclusion statement for overall feedback.
  • Review activity logs if needed.
• Student View:
  • Students view their grades, peer feedback, and the reviews that they provided.
  • No changes are allowed.
• Completion:
  • The activity ends, but you can optionally reopen phases if revisions are needed.

Top Tips

• Provide clear instructions: Ensure submission and assessment instructions are clear and specific.
• Test the Activity: You can temporarily switch your role to ‘student’, (you will need to allocate yourself to a Group) to test the Workshop process in advance.
• Monitor Participation: Track submissions and reviews, and send reminders to ensure all students participate.
• Rubric Design: For rubrics, use distinct levels (e.g., 5 – Outstanding: Comprehensive and innovative vs. 3 – Satisfactory: Meets basic requirements).
• Feedback Guidance: Encourage constructive feedback with examples (e.g., ‘Note strengths and suggest one specific improvement.’).