A moderation is a review conducted by a teacher. The number of moderations is counted across all assignments in a course.
It is possible to rely on peer consensus to determine a grade for a student in a Peer Review Assignment.
If a series of Peer Review Assignments are used in a course, and the Teacher only moderates to resolve conflicts, high performing students, who always produce good submissions and are always reviewed well by peers, may not hear from the Teacher and may feel cheated because of that.
A Moderation Target allows a Teacher to set targets for themselves at different points during the course. For example, if there are six assignments, it may be prudent to set a target of 1 moderation at the second assignment, 2 at the fourth and 3 at the sixth. Students then get a sense that the Teacher is overseeing the review process. Top students are usually easy to moderate, so this creates little additional work.
Note: A Moderation Target is a personal setting of each Teacher, so if multiple markers are working on the same assignment, they may need to agree to set a particular target before moderating.