What is a Rubric?

One of the grading methods available to course administrators is a rubric. A rubric is a tool that educators and evaluators use to assess student work against a set of criteria or learning goals. It provides a clear and objective way of evaluating student performance, as it lays out specific expectations for what is required to achieve a particular grade or level of mastery.

To use the rubric (which can only be used on a course or exercise item), Learning Progress must be set to "Manual by Rubric". This can be changed under the course Learning Progress under the settings subtab.

Click play to follow along with how to set up a rubric.

Once this has been set, a new item under Learning Progress will appear called "Rubric Card". Click this and you will see a dropdown where you can set how many behaviours (grade levels) to judge each group on; up to five behaviours are allowed. When the amount has been changed to your desired amount, click execute to show the changes. Locking will lock the number of groups and behaviour to what is shown in the table area below. Only the owner of the rubric will be able to unlock it, all others will get a notice that it is locked by that user.

Setting Rubric Criteria

The passing grade on the top right will be set to 80 as a default but can be changed to your desired grade.

Behaviours are the specific actions or characteristics that demonstrate the achievement of a criterion. They are the observable evidence used to evaluate performance against a criterion. In a rubric, behaviours are often described at different levels of performance, such as "exceeds expectations," "meets expectations," and "below expectations." Each behaviour has suggested names in the place holder such as excellent, good, etc. You will need to fill in the behaviour levels with the labels you would like. Next, set the points range to match each behaviour.

Example: We will set five behaviours. The first behaviour we will label "Excellent" and we will give it a points range of 80-100. The second behaviour we will label "Good" and it will have a points range of 60-79. Third we will give the label "Average" and it will be given the points range of 59-40. We will give the fourth the label of "Fair" and it will be given the points range of 39-20, and lastly we will give the fifth the label of "Bad" and it will be given the points range of 19-0.   Make sure your ranges do not overlap or you will see an error message about it below the input.

Groups can be added now to apply the behaviours. A group refers to a category or set of related criteria within a rubric. It represents a specific aspect or dimension of the performance being evaluated. For example, in a presentation rubric, you might have groups such as "Content," "Organization," and "Delivery." Criteria are the specific attributes or elements within a group that are being assessed. They are the individual indicators used to evaluate a person's performance or a product's quality. For example, under the "Content" group, criteria might include "Accuracy," "Relevance," and "Depth of Information."

These are the criteria that will be used for grading and what a course member must provide in their work to fall into the behaviour range. The behaviours dropdown allows more groups to be added upon execution. Once all groups and behaviours are done, click save to create the finalized grading rubric.

Give each behaviour a description of what is expected from a course member's work to be considered under that point range that point range (e.g., Excellent Behaviour shows a concrete understanding of work concepts and illustrates this understanding by giving two or more well-described examples). This criterion helps show course members why they have been given that grade for a grouping.

A rubric can't go active if there are any items on the page with the exclamation triangle instead of the checkmark. Inputs have a minimum number of required characters to change to valid (Five to six minimum depending on the field).

Grading

To grade a course member, go into Learning Progress->Course Participants. Click edit on the course member that you want to grade. If your rubric has not been properly completed you will get an error notice at this step.

Note that once a course member has been graded, the rubric cannot be edited so be sure that all the changes you want to make are completed before proceeding.

The rubric with grading range and criteria for each range is laid out with a box to enter the grade given. Below, comments can be entered and the total out of 100 is shown. This provides feedback to course members, helping them understand where they need to improve and providing guidance for future coursework. If there are multiple groupings the weight will be set to whatever the grade range is. For instance, one group's range is 0-100 so that section is worth a total of 100 points. Another group's range is 0-50, so the grade awarded here will have less weight on the overall total than the 100-point ranged section. 

When grading with a rubric, the teacher reviews the course member's work and assigns scores to each component based on how well they meet the predetermined criteria. The teacher may also provide comments or feedback for each component to help the course member understand how to improve their work.

Overall, grading with a rubric is a systematic and transparent way of evaluating course member work, allowing both teacher and course member to understand how the final grade was determined.

Once grading is completed, click save and the LMS will determine if the graded total falls within the previously set passing percentage set. If the course member's mark does fall on or above the passing percentage, the course member's status will show as completed with their test percentage, if not it will show as failed. The points range that the course member has been rewarded will have the associated criteria highlighted yellow upon saving.

Exporting, Downloading Templates and Regrading

On a saved and graded course member rubric card you will have the option to download the rubric template, export the graded PDF and regrade the current course member.

If you wish to download a copy of the rubric used for this course/exercise, click on "Download Rubric Template". This will initiate the download of a PDF of the rubric you have created. Should you wish to download a PDF copy of this course member's graded rubric, click "Export Graded PDF". If the user has been regraded previously make sure the correct rubric card has been selected from the dropdown.

If a course member needs to be regraded, click the "Regrade" button. this will give you a warning that it cannot be undone, should you wish to proceed, click confirm. Go through the grading process for the course member again and click save. You will now have two cards in the dropdown (or more if multiple regrades have been done). The most current graded card will be the grade set to that course member for this exercise or course.

Course Member View

Course members can view the rubric at any time in the "Learning Progress" tab so they can get an idea of what the expectations are on them for grading. If they have been graded or regraded they will see their current graded rubric card in this tab. If the course member wishes to see another graded card they can choose it from the dropdown. 

Course members will also have the option to download the blank rubric template and export their graded PDF rubric card.