Enhancing online collaboration: Virtual peer review in the writing classroom

Collaborative writing practices have long been endorsed in writing pedagogy. Peer review is one writing activity that reflects collaboration, for it involves the interaction of two or more persons who respond to one another’s writing [1-3]. Indeed, as Kenneth Bruffee suggests, peer review-or peer criticism, as he calls it-is an activity in which students collaborate with one another to learn and practice the “normal discourse” of a community. Bruffee contends that collaborative activities are critical to learning in writing classrooms, for they foster the kind of environment that academics value most: discussion among peers about scholarship [1, p. 640]. Beyond the connection between peer review and collaborative learning, however, there is another strand to explore: computer technology. For example, in writing pedagogy, collaborative writing activities like peer review are frequently assigned [4]; in addition, instructors are integrating computer technology more frequently in their classrooms [5]. The combination of these factors-the prevalence of collaborative forms of writing like peer review, along with the rising use of technology in the classroom-creates a unique opportunity to explore virtual forms of peer review.