Peer Code Review Platform for University Courses
A platform where students submit assignments and are anonymously assigned classmates' work to review against a rubric, with the instructor auditing review quality. Solves a real teaching problem: students learn far more from reading code than from having theirs marked, and nobody has time to arrange it manually.
Intermediate
A small team, or one strong student willing to learn something new.1 semester, 2 students
5 to ship
3 optional extrasSuggested stack
What you should ship
- Assignment and submission model with deadlines and file upload
- Anonymous allocation algorithm distributing reviews evenly and preventing self or repeated pairings
- Rubric based review interface with inline comments anchored to specific lines
- Instructor dashboard flagging low effort reviews and disagreement between reviewers on the same submission
- Grade aggregation combining peer scores with a documented method for handling outliers
If you have time left
- Automated checks running before peer review so reviewers are not spending time on formatting
- Reviewer reputation weighting based on agreement with the instructor over time
- Support for reviewing a Git repository rather than a file upload
The problem
Students learn a great deal from reading other people's code and almost never do it. Instructors know this and cannot organise it, because allocation, anonymity, chasing non participants and checking that reviews are serious is more administration than the exercise is worth by hand.
What you build
Submission handling, an allocation algorithm, a structured review interface, and the instructor tooling that makes the whole thing trustworthy.
The part that decides whether it works
Review quality control. Left unchecked, peer review degrades into every submission receiving looks good and full marks. Detecting that, by flagging very short reviews, reviews with no inline comments, and reviewers whose scores never vary, is the feature that makes this usable rather than a demonstration.
The algorithm worth doing properly
Allocation is more interesting than it looks. Every submission needs a similar number of reviews, no one reviews their own work, pairings should not repeat across assignments, and it has to cope with late submissions arriving after allocation has run.
How to evaluate it
Run it on a real assignment in a real course if you can get permission, even a small one. Report participation, review length distribution, and agreement between peer scores and the instructor's own marking on a sample.
Scope warning
Do not build a learning management system. Assume the course exists elsewhere and this handles one workflow well.
Ideas and guidance, not finished projects
These are project ideas and scoping guidance, published free for students to use as a starting point. I do not build, write, or sell final-year projects, and I do not complete coursework for anyone. Take an idea, make it yours, and build it.
Not sure this one fits you?
I help students pick an idea that matches their skills and their deadline, then scope it down until it is finishable. Guidance only, never done for you.
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