Peer Evaluations

The peer evaluations are a way for students to evaluate the contributions of their team members to the project. The peer review evluations account for 25% of the grade, so it is important to take this seriously.

Caution

A failure to complete the peer evaluation will result in a 50/100 on the corresponding assignment for the student who did not complete the survey.

The peer evaluation will be done using a Qualtrics Survey, which students will receive a link to via email. The survey will be open for a limited time, so make sure to complete it before the deadline.

All answers are anonymous, and the results will be shared with the instructors only. If you have questions regarding grades, please contact the instructors directly.

Tasks

Students have to assess themselves and their teammates on four criteria, then allocate a total of 100 points across all team members, including themselves, and finally provide qualitative feedback.

Quantitative Questions

The first task is to rate each member of the team on the following four criteria. Students will be asked to provide a rating for each member of their team, including self.

Criteria	Description
1	Did the member do an appropriate quantity of work?
2	How about the quality of the member’s work?
3	Rate the member’s attitude as a team player (eager to do assigned work, communicated with others, kept appointments, etc.).
4	Rate the overall value of the member’s technical contribution.

For each of the criteria, the student will rate each member of the team on a scale from 1 to 5, where:

• 1 = Better off without member, in this regard
• 2 = Some obvious shortcomings
• 3 = OK, but nothing special
• 4 = Good solid effort; took initiative
• 5 = Outstanding! Super asset to team

For the second task, students must distribute 100 points among team members, including self. They can give each member a score between 0 and 100, but the total must equal 100. This is a way to quantify the contributions of each member of the team.

One must give oneself at least 100/N points, where N is the number of members in the team, whether they honestly feel they deserve them or not. This is to avoid an unrealistic “self-incrimination” requirement. For example, if the student has a team of 4 members, one must give oneself at least 25 points. One can give oneself more than 25 points, but the total must equal 100.

Qualitative Feedback

Finally, students will be asked to provide any additional comments about their team members. This is optional, but it can be helpful for the instructor to understand the dynamics of the team. Here are the questions, written from the point of view of the student:

• For particularly high or low allocations, provide concrete examples to illustrate your reasoning. What particular behaviors of the team members are particularly valuable or detrimental?
• Overall, how effectively is your team working? Explain.
• What did you learn about working in a team that you will carry into the future?

Again, the results will be shared with the instructors only. If you have questions regarding your grade, please contact the instructors directly.

Grade Calculation

For the four criteria, the steps are outlined below:

1. Convert the ratings to a 50-100 scale, where
   • (Low) 1 = 50,
   • 2 = 62.5,
   • (Medium) 3 = 75,
   • 4 = 87.5,
   • (High) 5 = 100.
2. Average the ratings for each member of the team (excluding self)

Each individual score is thus the average of the ratings given by the other team members, scaled to a 50-100 scale.

For the 100-point distribution, the steps are outlined below:

1. Verify that self-evaluation is at least 100/N points and total score is 100 in each survey.
2. Average the ratings for each member of the team (excluding self)
3. If the team has more or less than 5 members:
   • Multiply the average by N (the number of team members )
   • Divide by 5
4. If the average is less than 10, set it to 10 (85%)
5. If the average is greater than 40, set it to 40 (115%)
6. Apply the following formula: $0.65 + 0.0225\cdot x - 0.00025\cdot x^2$ , where $x$ is the average score from the 100-point distribution.

Using this formula with the minimum and maximum values, we can see that the 100-point distribution score will be strictly between 85% and 115%, which is pretty generous. Scoring over 100% means your team members were particularly generous in their ratings, and you will be rewarded for your work.

The final score for each member of the team is the average of the scores from the four dimensions and the 100-point distribution score.

References

[1] M. W. Ohland et al., “The Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness: Development of a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale for Self- and Peer Evaluation,” AMLE, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 609—630, Dec. 2012, doi: 10.5465/amle.2010.0177.

[2] “Fairly Assessing Individual Contributions to Group Software Projects.” Accessed: Mar. 31, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.cs.ubc.ca/wccce/Program03/papers/Gardner-Group/Gardner-Group.htm