Creating Rubrics

Relevant to: faculty and staff

This article contains information considered accurate at the time of publishing. Technology updates, changes in University security practices, policies and procedures may effect the information in this article - updates to articles are scheduled on a periodic basis and will address any required changes.

Introduction

Rubrics are used to evaluate an activity based on a predefined set of criteria. They help ensure that activities are evaluated fairly and consistently.

About Rubric Types

There are two types of rubrics that can be used in Brightspace.

Analytic Rubrics

• Two-dimensional rubric with levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows.
• Allows instructors to assess students' achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric.
• Different weights can be assigned to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totaling the criteria.
• Points, Custom Points, and Text Only scoring methods can be used.
• The Overall Score determines if learners met the criteria determined by instructors and can be manually overridden.

Scoring Options

There are several ways to score a rubric:

• No Score: Performance levels indicated by text.
• Points: This is only available in analytic rubrics. Performance levels are indicated by points.
• Custom Points: This is only available in analytic rubrics. Allows the points to be varied for each criterion.
• Percentages: This scoring is only available to holistic rubrics. Can be automatically assessed based on the score of its associated item.

Holistic Rubrics

• Single criterion (one-dimensional) used to assess students' overall achievement on an activity based on predefined achievement levels.
• May only use percentage or text-only scoring method.

Create a Rubric

To view a video of the content in this section, use this link.

1. From Tools, click Rubrics.
2. On the Rubrics page, click New Rubric.
3. On the Edit Rubric Page, enter your rubric details.
   • Name should contain a unique name that enables you to identify it in a list. Consider whether this rubric will be reused throughout the course when you choose a name.
   • Rubric Status indicates the availability of the rubric.
   • Type indicates whether the rubric is analytic or holistic.
   • Scoring indicates whether you are using no score, points, or custom points to assess the rubric.
4. Enter the criteria you intend to assess against, one on each line of the rubric, replacing the Criterion 1, Criterion 2, and so on placeholder text.
   • If you need more criteria than the three rows on the template, click Add Criterion.
5. Define levels on the rubric. The template contains four levels; however you can add more to the left or right of the existing levels using the + buttons on the level heading row. Depending on the type of scoring you choose, you can also define the points for each level or for each criterion.
6. Click Add Criteria Group if you want to group the criteria.
7. Select the appropriate achievement level mapping you want to use. This feature only appears when the scale has percentage values defined and is only enabled for points-based and custom points-based rubrics.
8. At the bottom of the Rubric page, click Options and define additional rubric attributes:
   • Select the appropriate Rubric Visibility.
   • Click Hide scores from students if you do not want learners to see their scores. The default is to show scores.
   • Enter a Description to better identify the version of a rubric when it's name is being reused for a current rubric. The first two rows of the Description appear in the Rubric Selection dialog.
   • Indicate if you want to use Advanced Availability by associating a rubric with a tool such as Competencies or Brightspace ePortfolio as a means of assessing items created in those tools.
     • When you create an association for a rubric, you cannot edit or delete the rubric.
     • To make changes after associating it with a tool, you should change the rubric's status to Archived, then copy the rubric and make your changes to the new copy.
     • To associate your rubric with Competencies or Brightspace ePortfolio, select the Competencies or ePortfolio check boxes.
9. Click Close.

About Rubric Status Options

• Draft - The initial status of a rubric. Draft rubrics are not yet available for new associations.
• Published - Associations can be made with published rubrics. Once a rubric has an association, you cannot change the rubric's name, description, levels, and criteria.
• Archived - Archived rubrics do not appear in default search results and are not available for new associations. Existing associations with archived rubrics remain associated with activities that were previously created but they cannot be evaluated or updated. Learners continue to see learner-visible rubric evaluations on archived rubrics and their scores in activity summary, user progress, and Grades. Learners do not see the Archived state tag, however, they can see evaluations and feedback provided using an archived status rubric.