Using Rubrics

Rubrics and Competencies work together in Brightspace and both must be enabled for you to use the Rubrics. To enable both tools go to Course Admin and select Tools. You will only have to follow these steps once for each course.

Scroll down to Competencies and click the slider box to enable the tool. A checkmark instead of a cross (x) should display.

Scroll down further on the same page and enable Rubrics.

There are two types of rubrics you can choose from in Brightspace:

1. Holistic. Holistic rubrics consist of single criteria rubrics (one-dimensional) used to assess students’ overall achievement on an activity or item based on predefined achievement levels. The performance descriptions are usually written in paragraphs and usually in full sentences. Holistic rubrics may use a percentage or text only scoring method. Example of a holistic rubric for a Research Paper:

Figure: Example of Holystic Rubric, adapted from John Bean, Engaging Ideas, Exhibit 15.4: Holistic Scale for Grading Article Summaries (262

2. Analytical. Analytical rubrics are two-dimensional rubrics with multiple levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows. Analytical rubrics allow assessing a students’ achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. Different weights (value) can be assigned to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totalling the criteria. Using points and custom points for analytic rubrics may use both text and points to assess performance. With custom points, each criterion may be worth a different number of points. For both points and custom points, an Overall Score is provided based on the total number of points achieved. The Overall Score determines if students meet the criteria determined by instructors. The Total and the Overall Score of the rubric can manually be overridden. Analytical rubrics are usually written in a table form.Example of an analytical rubric for a Research Paper:

Figure: Example of an Analytical Rubric, adapted from Centre for Teaching Excellence, Appendix B: Sample Analytic Rubric (“Rubrics: Useful Assessment Tools).

There are two ways to create a rubric:

1. From the Rubrics tool in the Course Admin page
2. From the Assignments tool, while setting up an assignment

To set up a Rubric, do the following:

1. Create a new Rubric
   1. From the Rubrics tools:
      1. Open Course Admin in a course and select Rubrics.
      2. Click on New Rubrics.
   2. From an existing Assignment:
      1. Click on the Assignment you want to add a Rubric to, and click Edit Assignment
      2. In the Evaluation & Feedback menu, select Add Rubric and click Create New
2. Setting up a Rubric
   1. Choose a Name for the Rubric
   2. Set the “Status” to “Published“ if students are allowed to view the Rubric (Rubrics set to “Draft” or “Archived” will not be able to be linked to an assignment).
   3. Select Type  (see ‘Types of Rubrics’)
   4. Select the manner of Scoring
   5. Set the number of Levels and assign a score (if used) to each level
   6. Select the number of Criteria. Additional criteria can be added by selecting the ‘+ Add Criterion’ button
   7. Add additional Critera Groups by clicking on Add Criteria Group below the table or click on the three dots in the top left corner of the rubric table to Copy- or Delete Criteria Groups

3. Under Options you can set the Rubric Visibility to show or hide scores in the student view (see ' Rubric Visibility settings' for more information)

4. Add a description for the Rubric if required. These notes will not be visible to students.
5. Choose whether the Rubric should be associated with a Competency and/or ePortfolio in Brightspace to aid in assessing competencies.
6. You can now start adding content to the Rubric in the single-page workflow document. You can also delete criteria and levels and reorder them. See 'Levels and Criteria' for more information.

7. Click Close when the Rubric is finalized.

To preview the created Rubric, you can go to Preview in the drop-down menu next to the rubric you would like to preview. Here, you will be able to see the Rubric, and also download or print it. This can be done by clicking on the Print button.

Criteria:  Which deliverables, behaviours or applications of knowledge or skill will be looked for when assessing the activity? What needs to included and what should be said? What are the outcomes of the assessment? What should the student know or be able to do at this stage? Use the answers to the questions above to define the criteria for the rubric.

Levels: The levels of a rubric can be compared with a Likert scale. Use levels to determine to which extent the student has met the criteria. Many levels can be added to a rubric but the simpler the rubric, the easier it will be to use it. The student may earn marks for their level of achievement.

Below, a generic example of a rubric for a practical assignment:

As you can see, Rubrics state clearly what you want your students to achieve. It also helps clarify if you are assessing the right outcomes. It is recommended that you make the Rubric available to students so that they know exactly what is expected of them. If you don't wish to make the entire rubric avaiable, at least the criteria according to which they will be assessed should be available to the students. Instructors can enter a score for a criterion on a points-based rubric before clicking on a level within the Rubric.