Make Peerceptiv More Accessible

Peerceptiv is a UVA-licensed tool that supports peer feedback, revision, and collaborative small-group learning through assignments. These assignment-based activities can provide valuable opportunities for neurodivergent students and students with other disabilities to engage with course content, demonstrate their learning, and receive feedback in a more structured and flexible format.

While the tool itself is highly accessible, students who submit documents for peer review must also ensure that their own submitted materials are accessible to their peers in order to ensure a digitally accessible overall experience for everyone.

Before their first Peerceptiv assignment, it’s important to familiarize students with what Peerceptiv is and explain why peer review is valuable to their learning in your course.

This is also a good opportunity to introduce students to good accessibility practices like those in the 7 Pillars of Digital Accessibility. Explain the importance of applying practices like the following so their documents will be fully accessible to their peers:

• Will their documents include images, charts or graphs? Make sure they know to include descriptive alt text.
• Will clear document structure be important to comprehension? Explain how they should structure the document appropriately with heading and list styles.
• Will they be using hyperlinks in their documents? Check that they know how to make those hyperlinks descriptive.
• Will the assignment involve audio or video submissions? Make sure they include accurate transcripts and/or captions when they submit.

To avoid potential barriers, set clear expectations about submission format, with accessibility in mind. For example, PDFs will be harder for students to make accessible for their peers than submissions in Word format. Images of handwritten submissions will be particularly difficult to make accessible for all.

Should you include digital accessibility criteria in your peer-review rubric?

You may want to consider building key digital accessibility practices into the assignment rubric, to encourage students to develop good habits. For example, if the assignment involves submitting, reviewing and providing feedback on video, your rubric could include the accessibility of the video: the inclusion and accuracy of closed captions, the use of audio description where appropriate, etc.

Should you include digital accessibility criteria in team member evaluation rubrics?

Since Peerceptiv is also often used to facilitate group work and enable students to assess the contributions of their team members, you may want to consider including a criterion in team member evaluation rubrics that addresses how accessible the work was for the group. Setting this rubric expectation from the outset will encourage students to think about how they structure their group work so that everyone can participate effectively.

Contingency planning: What if a student encounters a barrier when trying to review a peer’s work?

If a student encounters an accessibility barrier that prevents them from reviewing and/or providing feedback on a peer’s work, it’s important for you as the instructor to have a contingency plan. How can you help to make that situation a safe and productive learning experience for all of the students involved? Can you preserve the value of the double-blind peer review process while still enabling all students to participate?