How can I effectively manage peer evaluation among my students? My students do quite a lot of their work in projects and much of that work is outside my view. While I can just give everyone on a team the same grade (or not) it is useful to me to know who is contributing to the work and how they are contributing. I don't require everyone contribute either the same "amount" (whatever that means) or in the same way? 

How can I manage peer evaluation so that I get useful information for grading, for advisement, and for course improvement?

I want my students to have a way to comment on the work of their peers on group projects. They can also comment on their own contributions, perhaps, as well. This is especially valuable, I think, when students do much of their work outside my direct view. 

I need the peer evaluation to not seem threatening to the students, and I don't  want it to generate ill feeling among them. 



To make the problem a bit harder, I don't want to divide up the work among the team members myself as I think that would inhibit their learning to be a team. The team itself is responsible for managing its work. Ideally, however, I hold each responsible for the team effort.
Something like the following has worked for me over several years. In any group assignment, each member of the group also submits a peer review sheet. For a group of two (e.g. pair programming) I ask each participant to detail the most important contribution of their partner AND their own most important contribution. I don't ask who worked harder or ask them to make an evaluation. I ask them for the contributions. 

In a group of about five, I will ask each member to name the (say) three most important members of their group and to mention the key contribution of each. I tell them that they can include themself in the list of three. I also ask, separately for their own most important contribution. 

I let them know at the beginning of the course that this will happen and its parameters, so it isn't a surprise. 

Students see that they are supposed to contribute to a group and are not asked to speak ill of anyone. Keep the questions entirely positive. But you also learn a lot from what is not said and who is not included in the contributor list. 

If the project happens outside your view, you also learn things about individuals that you can not otherwise know. I've had students I thought were slacking who were praised by teammates for making the team work properly. 

These peer evaluations are not optional. 

This same idea was also discussed here: https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/a/2578/1293
It is also, essentially identical to part of this: https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/a/3402/1293



Let me note that there may be cultural limitations here. In some cultures it may be odd to name oneself as a top contributor. In others it might be very natural. You can modify the scheme, of course, either requiring or forbidding naming oneself as one of the top people. Use your judgement here. 

Note also that this solution is based on the Peer Feedback pattern in Pedagogical Patterns: Advice for Educators