Feature Release - Memorandum of Understanding

The Peer Review Portal now provides you with the ability to upload a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for your projects, which must be read and accepted by your Reviewers before they can participate in your project.

To Upload your MOU, navigate to the "Invite Reviewers" screen, and simply upload your MOU document in the field provided.

The uploading of an MOU is entirely optional, but IF an MOU is provided, then your Reviewers will be required to acknowledge the MOU and agree to it before they are able to participate in your project.

The MOU will also always be available to the Reviewer via the "Review Materials" window.

Should you have any questions, or comments regarding this new feature, please don't hesitate to let us know via info@peerreviewportal.com

New Project Type - Benchmarking

The Peer Review Portal now has released the Benchmarking Project Type. You will be able to undertake benchmarking of processes and data at the following levels: course/program level, faculty/school/department, institutional, national and international levels.

Benchmarking can be defined as 'a structured, collaborative, learning process for comparing practices, processes or performance outcomes. Its purpose is to identify comparative strengths and weaknesses, as a basis for developing improvements in academic quality. Benchmarking can also be defined as a quality process used to evaluate performance by comparing institutional practices to sector good practice. (TEQSA, 2014)

Some of the benchmarking themes include:

• First year transition support
• Work integrated learning 
• Higher degree research processes and outcomes
• Student employability and mobility
• Teaching quality
• Support for academic staff 
• International student experience
• Pathways and partnerships 

HE institutions will be able to use the Benchmarking Project Type to ascertain how they are compared nationally and internationally with their peers for strategic planning and reporting purposes. Institutions will be able as part of the self-review process identify institutional recommendations for improvement as well as areas of good practice.

Improved Collaborator & Reviewer Controls

Hello Peer Reviewers,

Scenario. So you have set up your project, invited your Reviewers and started to gather data.

You're kicking back marvelling at how you ever completed a Peer Review project prior to the Peer Review Portal, when suddenly you receive an email advising that one of your Reviewers is now unable to participate in your project! Disaster!

What do I do you ask yourself? My Project is In progress and thus Locked and I'm not able to change my projects Reviewers or Collaborators! OH NO!

Never fear! Our latest update solves this critical problem.

You can now make changes to your In Progress & Completed projects Collaborators, Reviewers and Chair Person (Project type depending).

Simply navigate to your Outgoing project.

You will now see up to three (3) collapsable curtains.

Clicking on these curtains will allow you to see the Collaborators and Reviewers that you have already added, PLUS the ability to ADD NEW!

When you click ADD New, the usual Search box will appear, allowing you to search for Users via Name or Email address. HINT: You can even enter just a portion of the Email Address to see all Registered Users within an Institution. 

Once you have found the User you wish to Add to your project, click the Add button. 

Once you close the Search popup, you will notice that the new users that you have added are not yet saved. 

You must click the green SAVE button in order for your changes to be saved. 

If you add a User by mistake, you can click the red cross at the top right of their profile card, to remove them. 

There are of course some rules. 

1. Removing a Collaborator, Reviewer or Chair will happen immediately upon confirmation. 
2. IF a Reviewer has COMPLETED their review, you are unable to remove them from the project. 
3. You can only have One (1) Chair person at a time.

This feature also opens up additional ways that you can configure your project. 

You can configure and Pay for your project BEFORE all of your Reviewers are confirmed, you can then add additional Reviewers or Panel Members as desired. 

Once your Project is In Progress or Closed, you can invite other Collaborators to view the project Report. 

We hope you find this release helpful. Should you encounter any issues, please don't hesitate to let us know via info@peerreviewportal.com

Cheers, 

The Peer Review Team