Configure Canvas Peer Review Timing

Quick Links: | Prerequisites | Instructions | Troubleshooting | Next Steps |

Introduction

Canvas peer review issues are often caused by timing settings rather than a system failure. When peer reviews are set up with the wrong dates or settings, students may not receive reviews, may not see the peer review link, or may be unable to annotate submissions. Understanding how Canvas handles submission timing, automatic assignment, and anonymous review settings can help you avoid these issues before students are affected. This guide explains how to time peer reviews correctly and how to troubleshoot the most common peer review problems.

Prerequisites

• You are creating or managing a Canvas assignment that uses peer review.
• You have permission to edit the assignment settings.
• You know whether you want peer reviews to be automatically assigned, manually assigned, anonymous, or non-anonymous.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Configure Canvas Peer Review Timing

There are several ways to avoid peer review problems in Canvas. The most important decisions are when reviews will be assigned, whether students must submit before reviewing, and whether feedback should be anonymous.

Set the auto-assign date

To configure peer reviews with automatic assignment, do the following:

1. Open the Canvas assignment that will use peer review.
2. Select Edit.
3. Locate the peer review settings for the assignment.
4. Enable Automatically Assign Peer Reviews if you want Canvas to distribute reviews for you.
5. Set the assignment due date first.
6. Set the peer review assignment date for at least one hour after the assignment due date. A longer buffer, such as one day, may work better if you expect late submissions.
7. Save the assignment settings.

This setup gives Canvas time to include students who submit near the deadline. It reduces the chance that late submitters will be excluded from automatic peer review assignment.

Confirm students have submitted

To make sure students can access their assigned peer reviews, do the following:

1. Ask the student to confirm they submitted their own assignment.
2. Check the assignment submission status in Canvas.
3. If the student has not submitted, instruct them to complete their submission before looking for peer reviews again.

Canvas only reveals assigned peer reviews after a student has submitted their own work. This means a missing peer review link is often caused by a missing submission.

Choose anonymous or annotated feedback

To decide how students will leave feedback, do the following:

1. Open the assignment settings.
2. Review whether Anonymous Peer Reviews is enabled.
3. Leave anonymous peer review enabled if you only want students to use comments in the sidebar or complete a rubric.
4. Disable anonymous peer review if you want students to annotate directly on the submitted document.

This setting determines what kind of feedback tools students can use. Anonymous peer reviews protect reviewer identity, but they prevent students from using DocViewer annotations.

Troubleshooting

If peer reviews were not assigned, first confirm that the peer review assignment date has already passed. If it has not, Canvas will not distribute the reviews yet. If the date has passed and reviews are still missing, manually assign peer reviews using the assignment’s peer review options.

If a student has no one to review, check whether they submitted after the automatic peer review assignment date. Students who submit after that time are not included in the automatic distribution and need a peer assigned manually.

If a review is marked incomplete, confirm that the student left at least one comment. In Canvas, a peer review may remain incomplete if the student did not enter any sidebar comment.

For more detail, refer to:

• Peer Review Tips (Instructure)
• Quick Reference: Timing and Late Submissions (PDF)

Next Steps (Optional)