Take a look at Robin Turner’s FYS blog. (The link is on the right.) As she explains:

This site was created to facilitate student partner work on formal assignments. Students in my FYS are required to submit a draft of each formal essay roughly a week before each is due, and to review and comment upon another student’s draft. Previously, the students did this by bringing a printed copy of their draft essay to class, exchanging essays, and reviewing them in light of the worksheet I handed out. This blog enables us to do the same thing while killing fewer trees. It also facilitates doing reviews outside of class. The “Guidelines” section at the bottom right of the table of contents page provides assignment guidelines, review guidelines, and other general tips.

 
I had the idea of shifting to electronic reviews after reading The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11841, http://www.futureofthebook.org/HASTAC/learningreport/about/) and learning about CommentPress (a WordPress theme/plug-in). The Center for Academic Technology looked at CommentPress and decided that the Digress.It plug-in was more appropriate (see http://digress.it/).

This plug enables paragraph by paragraph commenting on posted work. As you can tell by looking at the posted draft essays, the quantity and quality of students comments on each other’s work varies widely. I didn’t monitor this closely but may use the semi-public nature of this process to highlight models of what to aim for in the future.

Robin