Rubrics

Enable a rubric in your assignment

There are two ways.

The first is at the point of setting of setting up the Assignment.

1. From your course page click on 'Turn editing on'.
2. Scroll to the assignment that you want to set up a Rubrics on and click on Edit (A) and then Edit Settings (B).

1. In your assignment's Settings, expand the Grade section.
2. From the Grading method menu, choose Rubric.
3. Note the Maximum grade setting - whatever numeric grade you assign to your criteria levels, the ultimate grade for the assignment will be recalculated as the proportion of that maximum grade.
4. Save the settings; Rubric is now enabled for that particular Assignment.

The other is via the Assignment's Settings block:

1. From the Assignment's summary page, in its Settings block, click Advanced grading; a new page displays a menu.
2. From the Change active grading method to menu, choose Rubric; this initiates the rubric setup process.

Define your rubric

To define a new rubric from scratch:

1. Go to the Rubric editor via the Advanced grading link in the assignment's Settings block.
2. Click Define a new rubric from scratch.
3. Type in a brief distinctive Name and (if needed) a description.
4. Click to edit a criterion and Click to edit level lets you tab through the rubric to type a description and assign points to each level.
5. Describe further criteria and levels as appropriate.
6. Set Rubric options.
7. Finally save the rubric definition by clicking Save rubric and make it ready or Save as draft. These set the form definition status respectively as described at the Advanced grading methods page.

Notes:

• Unless there is a good reason otherwise, enable Allow users to preview rubric so that they know in advance the standards by which they will be judged. Enabling Remarks allows assessors to make constructive suggestions for each criterion.
• Numeric points are required, but if you want to use your rubric to give feedback without a numeric grade it is possible to hide these from students, and hide the final calculated grade from students.
• You can enter negative points, for example as a late submission penalty.
• You can modify the weight of any criterion by setting the value of the points assigned to its levels. If there is one criterion with levels 0, 1, 2, 3 and the second one with levels 0, 2, 4, 6 then the latter's impact on the final grade is twice as much as the former's.
• You can use the Tab key to jump to the next level/criteria and even to add new criteria.

Grading submissions with a rubric

1. To access the submissions, click a link to the Assignment; its summary page displays.
2. Click Grade; the Student Grading Page displays the work of the first student listed in the Grading Table.
3. The rubric you have set up will display as a table on one side of the screen - you can display it larger by clicking its Expand / arrowheads icon (to dock the rubric, click the icon again).
4. For each criterion, select a level by clicking in its cell; when selected the level displays shaded (default pale green).
5. If enabled on the rubric form, you can type in comments for each criterion.
6. Save changes.

Notes:

• As well as the rubric you can add summary Feedback comments for the work, and optionally Feedback files.
• A level must be selected for each criterion, otherwise the rubric is not validated by the server as the final grade can't be calculated.
• If the rubric filling is re-edited later, the previously selected level displays temporarily shaded (default: pink).
• Students may need to be instructed to scroll down to find the completed rubric and any other comments - the example rubric continues to display at the top of their assignment Submission status page.

How students access the rubric

Assuming 'Allow users to preview rubric' is ticked (recommended), when students click on an assignment which has a rubric attached to it, they will see the rubric as part of the information about their assignment. Thus, they can see the rubric before they submit.

How teachers access the rubric

Teachers will see the rubric when they click 'View/grade all submissions' and access the work of a particular student. They don't by default see the rubric on the grading page before grading.