Calibrated Peer Review
For more detailed instructions, see the CPR website at http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu/.
Overview
What Is It?
Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)™ is a tool designed to allow instructors even in large courses to realistically offer writing assignments, because it automates a process of student peer review, based on guides initially input by the instructor. CPR offers an assignment library, or instructors can create their own assignments. CPR was initially developed in the sciences, but can be used with any discipline.
CPR was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Who Uses It?
Julie Reynolds in The Department of Biology at Duke uses CPR. Click here to see her CIT Showcase Poster from 2006.
If you are interested in using CPR, please contact cit@duke.edu. Although CIT does not officially support CPR, we can create a CPR account for you and will provide limited assistance as we are able.
How Does It Work?
Faculty create an assignment, or choose one from the assignment library. An assignment consists of a writing prompt and guiding questions. While creating the assignment, faculty also enter three writing samples in response to the prompt (excellent, mediocre, poor) to calibrate student review skills, a rubric for assessing the calibrations, and their own assessment of those responses.
From the student perspective, there are three phases in a CPR assignment: text entry, calibration and review, and results. Students first read and respond to the assignment themselves. Once they have entered their own response, they are presented with the three writing calibration samples and the assessment rubric, and are required to complete their own assessment of the samples. Their assessments are compared to the instructor's assessment as a method of calibration. When they demonstrate adequate review skills, they are presented with three anonymous assignment submissions from their peers to assess, and then must assess their own writing response.
Uses as an Instructional Technology
The CPR home page offers a link to a CPR "tour" from a student perspective.
Additional Information
- Creating assignments in CPR will take several hours for the faculty, and completing assignments will take a significant amount of time for students.
- CPR is hosted on servers at UCLA, and data and user account information entered into CPR are stored on those servers. In addition, there is no integration with Duke authentication systems, and users should probably not use their Duke credentials at the site. The site does describe CPR's privacy policy, and there are over 400 registered accounts (institutions) listed on their site.
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