Rubrics

Your institution controls which tools are available in the Original Course View. Rubrics are always available to instructors in the Ultra Course View.

Rubrics can help ensure consistent and impartial grading and help students focus on your expectations.

A rubric is a scoring tool you can use to evaluate graded work. When you create a rubric, you divide the assigned work into parts. You can provide clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each part, at varying levels of skill.

Students can use a rubric to organize their efforts to meet the requirements of the graded work. When you allow students access to rubrics before they complete their work, you provide transparency into your grading methods.

Watch a video about creating rubrics

Video: Create rubrics shows how to create a rubric for assessing and grading student work.

About rubrics

You can create multiple rubrics in your course. Rubrics consist of rows and columns. The rows correspond to the criteria. The columns correspond to the level of achievement that describes each criterion. You can create fours types of rubrics: percentage, percentage range, points, and points range.

New rubrics have four rows and four columns. You can add up to 15 columns and rows, and you can delete all but one row and one column. You can associate rubrics with assignments and discussions.

At this time, you can only associate rubrics with assessments with no questions. You can't create rubrics at small screen widths. Rubrics are read-only on small devices.

Rubrics are rows and columns that help you evaluate graded work. Rows show your assessment criteria and columns describe student’s performance for each criteria.

Rubric types

You can create four types of rubrics in a course:

Percentage-based rubrics.
Percentage-range rubrics.
Points-based rubrics.
Points-range rubrics.

Percentage-based rubrics

For percentage-based rubrics, the criteria total percentage must equal 100%. You may only use whole numbers. You may add rows set to 0% as long as your total percentage equals 100.

This is how a percentage-based rubric balance look like. There’s a warning: all percentages must add up to 100%.

If the percentages don't equal 100, a warning message appears at the bottom of the screen. Select Balance Criteria next to the message to auto-adjust the percentages so they equal 100. Or, you can manually update the percentages as needed.

For the levels of achievement, one column must have a value of 100%. You may only use whole numbers.

Percentage-range rubrics

For percentage-range rubrics, each level of achievement has a range of values. When you grade, you select the appropriate percentage level for a particular level of achievement. The system calculates the points earned by multiplying the weight x achievement percentage x item points.

This is how a percentage-based rubric details look like.

Points-based rubrics

For points-based rubrics, the maximum possible points should be less than or equal to 99,999. You may only use whole numbers. You may add rows set to 0 as long as your total points are less than or equal to 99,999.

This is how a point-based new rubric looks like. There’s a warning sign: added value should be less than or equal to 99,999.

Points-range rubrics

For points-range rubrics, the maximum possible points should be less than or equal to 99,999. You may only use whole numbers. You may add rows set to 0 as long as your total points are less than or equal to 99,999.

The point range for each criterion must go from a lower range to a higher range.

In this example of points range rubric, excellent ranges from 8 to 10 points. Satisfactory ranges from 5 points to 7 points. Unsatisfactory, ranges from 2 to 4 points, and poor ranges from 0 to 1 point.

Create rubrics

You can create rubrics from an assignment, test, discussion, or from the gradebook. On the assignment, test, or discussion page, select the Settings icon to open the Settings panel. In the Additional Tools section, select Add grading rubric and Create New Rubric. In your gradebook, select the Settings icon. In the Gradebook Settings panel, existing rubrics are listed in the Grade schemas section.

From an assignment, test, or discussion

When you create or edit an assignment, test, or discussion, you can create a new rubric. You can also associate an existing rubric unless you've already graded the item. You may associate only one rubric to each assignment, test, or discussion.

At this time, you can only associate rubrics with assessments with no questions.

On the assignment, test, or discussion page, select the Settings icon to open the Settings panel.
In the Additional Tools section, select Add grading rubric > Create New Rubric.
On the New Rubric page, type a title with a limit of 255 characters. If you don't add a title, "New Rubric" and the date appear as the title.
Select a Rubric Type: Percentage, Percentage Range, Points, or Points Range.

By default, four criteria rows and four achievement level columns appear. You can add, delete, and rename the rows and columns. Point to a cell to access the edit and delete icons. Select the plus sign wherever you want to add a row or column and type a title. If you don't want the new row or column, you can delete it.

When you add an achievement level, a percentage is automatically added. For example, if you add an achievement level between two levels listed at 100% and 75%, your new level is assigned 88%. You can adjust the percentages as needed. Click anywhere to save your changes.

For new and existing levels of achievement, you can add an optional description. Achievement titles have a 40-character limit. Criteria and description cells have a 1,000 character limit. You can't add HTML code to titles and cells. You can paste text from another document, but the formatting doesn't carry over.

When you press the Enter key, a new paragraph isn't started in a cell. The Enter key confirms you're finished. Your work is saved and you leave edit mode.

You can align goals with rows in the rubric if you want to measure achievement against goals set by your institution. Select Align with goals to get started. Students can't see the goals you align with criteria in a rubric.

Rubric columns range from highest to lowest scores. You can't change this order.

From the gradebook

You can create, edit, copy, delete, and review existing rubrics from your gradebook. Rubrics are listed in alphabetical order.

In your gradebook, select the Settings icon.
In the Gradebook Settings panel, existing rubrics are listed in the Grading schemas section.

Watch a video about associating rubrics

Video: Associate rubrics shows how to associate an existing rubric to an assessment.

Associate rubrics to assessments

You can associate an existing rubric to an assignment or test unless you've already graded the assessment. You may associate only one rubric to each assessment. On the assignment, test, or discussion page, select the Settings icon to open the Settings panel. In the Additional Tools section, select Add grading rubric and Create New Rubric.

More on associating a rubric to a discussion

Add a grading rubric in your assignment settings.

At this time, you can only associate rubrics with assessments with no questions.

On the assignment or test page, select the Settings icon to open the Settings panel.
In the Additional Tools section, select Add grading rubric to view existing rubrics. Rubrics appear in alphabetical order.
- If you haven't used a rubric in grading, you can select the rubric title to make changes to the title, rows, columns, and percentages. You can also add or delete rows and columns.
- Select the Add icon to associate the rubric to the assessment. Reminder: You may associate only one rubric to each assessment or discussion.

When you associate a rubric and view a student's assignment or test submission, the grade pill displays a rubric icon.

Rubric icon on a student's assignment or test submission.

Remove associations

You can remove a rubric from an assessment you've graded and the grades will remain. The grades are no longer associated with the rubric, but now appear as grades you added manually.

Return to the Settings panel and point to the associated rubric's title to access the Remove icon.

Delete option from an assessment you've graded beside a grading rubric.

Student view of rubrics

Students can view a rubric before they open an assignment, test, and discussion and after they start the attempt. Students select This item is graded with a rubric to view the rubric.

This is how students view a rubric before they open a gradable item or after they start the attempt.

Students can view the rubric alongside the instructions. They can expand each rubric criterion to view the achievement levels and organize their efforts to meet the requirements of the graded work.

This is how students view any given rubric criteria on a gradable item.

Manage rubrics

Based on where you access a rubric, you have different options. You can edit, delete, copy, export, archive rubrics or align a rubric with goals. You can access a rubric from an item's Settings panel and the Gradebook Settings panel.

Edit rubrics

If you haven't used a rubric in grading, you can select the rubric title to make changes to the title, rows, columns, and percentages. You can also add or delete rows and columns.

After you use a rubric for grading, you can't edit it, but you can make a copy that you can edit and rename.

Copy rubrics

From the Gradebook Settings panel, open a rubric's menu and select Duplicate to create a copy of an existing rubric. The copied rubric opens with the date and "copy" added to the title. You can make edits as needed. Select Save to save the duplicate rubric.

If you copy an existing percentage-based rubric and change it to a percentage-range rubric, all the descriptions are cleared.

Rubric options menu open showing the duplicate option.

If you've already used a rubric to grade an item, you can also copy the rubric and edit the duplicate version. From an item's Settings panel, open the rubric. Select Create a Copy at the bottom of the screen. When you create a copy of a rubric you used to grade a test or assignment, the new rubric is associated with the item. Any grades calculated with the original rubric are preserved, but these grades are converted to overrides. You can regrade these submissions with the new rubric.

This is a Create a copy button at the bottom of a rubric page.

You can't copy rubrics on small devices.

Delete rubrics

You can permanently delete a rubric from your course even if you used it in grading and the grades will remain. The grades are no longer associated with the rubric, but now appear as grades you added manually.

To permanently delete a rubric, open the Gradebook Settings panel in the gradebook.

Align goals with a rubric

Inside a new or existing rubric, select the Align with goals link that appears under a criterion row to add, edit, or remove associated goals. The Goals & Standards page appears. Students can't view the goals you align with a rubric.

More on how to align goals with course content

Export and archive courses with rubrics

Rubrics are saved in export and archive packages.

When you convert an Original course to Ultra, percentage-range and percentage rubrics are converted without descriptions. If your rubric contains more than fifteen rows or columns in your Original course, only the first fifteen rows or columns carry over to your Ultra course. All other rubric types are converted to percentage rubrics, such as points and point range. All Original rubric settings are now set to the Ultra rubric defaults, such as display to students.

Use your keyboard to navigate rubrics

You can use the arrow keys to navigate the rubric cells. The top-left cell is the initial focus of the rubric table. When you press Tab, you send focus in this order:

First Add Column function
First column heading cell, and so on
Press Tab on the last Add Column function to send focus to the Add Criterion function at the top of the next row
Criterion heading cell of the next row
First achievement level on the row
Then, across the row
Add Criterion function on the next row, and so on

You can press Enter on any rubric cell to send focus to the Edit function for that cell. Press Enter again to start the editing action. Press Enter while in edit mode to exit edit mode and return focus to the cell you were editing.

When you edit a column heading, only that heading is editable. Tab/Enter exits the heading and returns focus to the cell.

When you edit a criterion heading, all criteria headings are editable. Tab focus moves vertically between the inputs. Tab moves from the last input to exit criteria edit mode and puts the focus on that cell.

When you edit any achievement level description cell, all achievement level description cells are editable for that criterion. Tab moves from percentage to description to percentage for the next level. Tab on the last input exits edit mode and return focus to the last cell in the row.

Move focus between the rubric and content

You can navigate between the rubric and the content you're grading, such as an assignment.

When the focus is on the last criterion heading, press Tab to move focus to a hidden anchor function near the top of the rubric panel that reads "Focus" and points to the content portion.

The anchor function only becomes visible when focused, not hovered. Only keyboard users will be aware the function exists.

When the focus is on the "Focus" button, press Tab to move to the top of the rubric panel to the first tabbable element, close button.

Press Enter/spacebar to move the focus to the first tabbable element in the content portion.

When the focus is on the next-to-last tabbable element in the content portion, press Tab to move the focus to a hidden anchor button near the top of the content portion that reads "Focus" and points to the rubric panel.

When the focus is on the "Focus" button, press Tab to move the focus to the first tabbable element in the content portion.

Press Enter/spacebar to move the focus to the first tabbable element in the rubric panel.

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