rubrics in assignment

Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

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Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric, more examples:.

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

Assessment Rubrics

A rubric is commonly defined as a tool that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing criteria, and for each criteria, describing levels of quality (Andrade, 2000; Arter & Chappuis, 2007; Stiggins, 2001). Criteria are used in determining the level at which student work meets expectations. Markers of quality give students a clear idea about what must be done to demonstrate a certain level of mastery, understanding, or proficiency (i.e., "Exceeds Expectations" does xyz, "Meets Expectations" does only xy or yz, "Developing" does only x or y or z). Rubrics can be used for any assignment in a course, or for any way in which students are asked to demonstrate what they've learned. They can also be used to facilitate self and peer-reviews of student work.

Rubrics aren't just for summative evaluation. They can be used as a teaching tool as well. When used as part of a formative assessment, they can help students understand both the holistic nature and/or specific analytics of learning expected, the level of learning expected, and then make decisions about their current level of learning to inform revision and improvement (Reddy & Andrade, 2010). 

Why use rubrics?

Rubrics help instructors:

Provide students with feedback that is clear, directed and focused on ways to improve learning.

Demystify assignment expectations so students can focus on the work instead of guessing "what the instructor wants."

Reduce time spent on grading and develop consistency in how you evaluate student learning across students and throughout a class.

Rubrics help students:

Focus their efforts on completing assignments in line with clearly set expectations.

Self and Peer-reflect on their learning, making informed changes to achieve the desired learning level.

Developing a Rubric

During the process of developing a rubric, instructors might:

Select an assignment for your course - ideally one you identify as time intensive to grade, or students report as having unclear expectations.

Decide what you want students to demonstrate about their learning through that assignment. These are your criteria.

Identify the markers of quality on which you feel comfortable evaluating students’ level of learning - often along with a numerical scale (i.e., "Accomplished," "Emerging," "Beginning" for a developmental approach).

Give students the rubric ahead of time. Advise them to use it in guiding their completion of the assignment.

It can be overwhelming to create a rubric for every assignment in a class at once, so start by creating one rubric for one assignment. See how it goes and develop more from there! Also, do not reinvent the wheel. Rubric templates and examples exist all over the Internet, or consider asking colleagues if they have developed rubrics for similar assignments. 

Sample Rubrics

Examples of holistic and analytic rubrics : see Tables 2 & 3 in “Rubrics: Tools for Making Learning Goals and Evaluation Criteria Explicit for Both Teachers and Learners” (Allen & Tanner, 2006)

Examples across assessment types : see “Creating and Using Rubrics,” Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and & Educational Innovation

“VALUE Rubrics” : see the Association of American Colleges and Universities set of free, downloadable rubrics, with foci including creative thinking, problem solving, and information literacy. 

Andrade, H. 2000. Using rubrics to promote thinking and learning. Educational Leadership 57, no. 5: 13–18. Arter, J., and J. Chappuis. 2007. Creating and recognizing quality rubrics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall. Stiggins, R.J. 2001. Student-involved classroom assessment. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Reddy, Y., & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation In Higher Education, 35(4), 435-448.

Center for Teaching Innovation

Resource library.

• AACU VALUE Rubrics

Using rubrics

A rubric is a type of scoring guide that assesses and articulates specific components and expectations for an assignment. Rubrics can be used for a variety of assignments: research papers, group projects, portfolios, and presentations.  

Why use rubrics? 

Rubrics help instructors: 

• Assess assignments consistently from student-to-student. 
• Save time in grading, both short-term and long-term. 
• Give timely, effective feedback and promote student learning in a sustainable way. 
• Clarify expectations and components of an assignment for both students and course teaching assistants (TAs). 
• Refine teaching methods by evaluating rubric results. 

Rubrics help students: 

• Understand expectations and components of an assignment. 
• Become more aware of their learning process and progress. 
• Improve work through timely and detailed feedback. 

Considerations for using rubrics 

When developing rubrics consider the following:

• Although it takes time to build a rubric, time will be saved in the long run as grading and providing feedback on student work will become more streamlined.  
• A rubric can be a fillable pdf that can easily be emailed to students. 
• They can be used for oral presentations. 
• They are a great tool to evaluate teamwork and individual contribution to group tasks. 
• Rubrics facilitate peer-review by setting evaluation standards. Have students use the rubric to provide peer assessment on various drafts. 
• Students can use them for self-assessment to improve personal performance and learning. Encourage students to use the rubrics to assess their own work. 
• Motivate students to improve their work by using rubric feedback to resubmit their work incorporating the feedback. 

Getting Started with Rubrics 

• Start small by creating one rubric for one assignment in a semester.  
• Ask colleagues if they have developed rubrics for similar assignments or adapt rubrics that are available online. For example, the  AACU has rubrics  for topics such as written and oral communication, critical thinking, and creative thinking. RubiStar helps you to develop your rubric based on templates.  
• Examine an assignment for your course. Outline the elements or critical attributes to be evaluated (these attributes must be objectively measurable). 
• Create an evaluative range for performance quality under each element; for instance, “excellent,” “good,” “unsatisfactory.” 
• Avoid using subjective or vague criteria such as “interesting” or “creative.” Instead, outline objective indicators that would fall under these categories. 
• The criteria must clearly differentiate one performance level from another. 
• Assign a numerical scale to each level. 
• Give a draft of the rubric to your colleagues and/or TAs for feedback. 
• Train students to use your rubric and solicit feedback. This will help you judge whether the rubric is clear to them and will identify any weaknesses. 
• Rework the rubric based on the feedback. 

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• Assessing Student Learning

Creating and Using Rubrics

Rubrics are both assessment tools for faculty and learning tools for students that can ease anxiety about the grading process for both parties. Rubrics lay out specific criteria and performance expectations for an assignment. They help students and instructors stay focused on those expectations and to be more confident in their work as a result. Creating rubrics does require a substantial time investment up front, but this process will result in reduced time spent grading or explaining assignment criteria down the road.  

Reasons for Using Rubrics

Research indicates that rubrics:

• Rubrics can help normalize the work of multiple graders, e.g., across different sections of a single course or in large lecture courses where TAs manage labs or discussion groups.
• Well-crafted rubrics can reduce the time that faculty spend grading assignments.
• Timely feedback has a positive impact on the learning process.
• When coupled with other forms of feedback (e.g., brief, individualized comments) rubrics show students how to improve.
• By giving students a clear sense of what constitutes different levels of performance, rubrics can make self- and peer-assessments more meaningful and effective.
• If students complete an assignment with a rubric as a guide, then students are better equipped to think critically about their work and to improve it.
• Rubrics establish, in great detail, what different levels of student work look like. If students have seen an assignment rubric in advance and know that they will be held accountable to it, defending grade decisions can be much easier.

Tips for Creating Effective Rubrics

• To create performance descriptions for a new rubric, first rank student responses to an assignment from best to mediocre to worst. Read back through the assignments in that order. Record the characteristics that define student work at each of the three levels. Use your notes to craft the performance descriptions for each criteria category of your new rubric.
• Alternately, start by drafting your high and low performance descriptions for each criteria category, then fill in the mid-range descriptions.
• Use the language of your assignment prompt in your rubric.
• Consider rubric language carefully—how do you encapsulate the range of student responses that could realistically fall in a given cell? Lots of “and/or” statements.
• E.g., “Introduction and/or conclusion handled well but may leave some points unaddressed;” “Sources may be improperly cited or may be missing”
• Completely Effective, Reasonably Effective, Ineffective
• Superb, Strong, Acceptable, Weak
• Compelling, Reasonable, Basic
• Advanced, Intermediate, Novice
• Proficient, Not Yet Proficient, Beginning
• Outstanding, Very Good, Good, Basic, Unsatisfactory
• Exemplary, Proficient, Competent, Developing, Beginning

Tips for Testing and Revising Rubrics

• Score sample assignments without a rubric and then with one. Compare the results. Ask a colleague to use your rubric to do the same.
• Ask a colleague to use your rubric to score student work you've already scored with the rubric and then compare results.
• Get your colleagues' feedback on the alignment of your rubric's grading criteria with your assignment and course-level learning objectives.
• Discuss your rubrics with your students and determine what they do and do not like or understand about them.

Tips for Using Rubrics

• Create a generic rubric template that you can modify for specific assignments.
• Keep the rubric to one page if at all possible. Give the rubric a descriptive title that clearly links it to the assignment prompt and/or digital grade book.
• Give the rubric to students in advance (i.e., with the related assignment prompt) and discuss it with them. Explain the purpose of the rubric, and require students to use the rubric for self-assessment and to reflect on process.
• Allow students to score example work with the rubric before attempting actual peer- or self-review. Discuss with the students how the example work correlates to the competency levels on the rubric.
• Consider engaging in active-learning, rubric development exercises with your students. Have your students help you identify relevant assignment components or develop drafts of your performance descriptions, etc.
• When returning work to students, only highlight those portions of the rubric text that are relevant.
• Couple rubrics with other measures or forms of feedback. Giving  brief additional feedback that responds holistically and/or subjectively to student work is a good way to support formative assessment.
• Include relevant learning objectives on your rubrics and/or related assignment prompts.
• To document trends in your teaching, keep copies of rubrics that you return to students and review them later on. Analyzing groups of graded rubrics over time can give you a sense of what might be weak in your teaching and what you need to focus on in the future.
• Canvas has a built-in rubric tool .
• iRubric  can be used create be used to create rubrics in Canvas as well (availability varies by department). 

Online Resources

• Rubrics resource page from the Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University (includes several discipline-specific examples):
• Sample Rubrics from the Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education
• Association of American Colleges and Universities VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) Rubrics
• Holistic Essay-Grading Rubrics at the University of Georgia, Athens
• Quality Matters Rubric for Assessing University-Level Online and Blended Courses  (Seventh Edition)
• iRubric Tool and Samples
• Canvas Guides on Rubrics:
• Creating a rubric
• Editing a rubric
• Managing course rubrics
• Rubrics in Speedgrader

Barkley, E.F., Cross, P.K., and Major, C.H. (2005). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Barney, Sebastian, et al . “Improving Students with Rubric-Based Self-Assessment and Oral Feedback.” IEEE Transaction on Education 55, no. 3 (August 2012): 319-25.

Besterfield-Sacre, Mary, et al . “Scoring Concept Maps: An Integrated Rubric for Assessing Engineering Education.” Journal of Engineering Education 93, no. 2 (2004): 105-15.

Broad, Brian. What we Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Writing Assessment . Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2003.

Hout, Brian. Rearticulating Writing Assessment for Teaching and Learning . Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2002.

Howell, Rebecca J. “Exploring the Impact of Grading Rubrics on Academic Performance: Findings from a Quasi-Experimental, Pre-Post Evaluation.” Journal on Excellence in College Teaching 22, no. 2 (2011): 31-49.

Jonsson, Anders and Gunilla Svingby. “The Use of Scoring Rubrics: Reliability, Validity, and Educational Consequences.” Educational Research Review 2 (2007): 130-44.

Kishbaugh, Tara L.S., et al . “Measuring Beyond Content: A Rubric Bank for Assessing Skills in Authentic Research Assignments in the Sciences.” Chemistry Education Research and Practice 13 (2012): 268-76.

Leist, Cathy, et al . “The Effects of Using a Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric to Assess Undergraduate Students’ Reading Skills.” Journal of College Reading and Learning 43, no. 1 (Fall 2012): 31-58.

Livingston, Michael and Lisa Storm Fink. “The Infamy of Grading Rubrics.” English Journal, High School Edition 102, no. 2 (Nov. 2012): 108-13.

Stevens, Dannelle D. and Antonia J. Levi. Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save GradingTime, Convey Effective Feedback and Promote Student Learning . (Sterling, VA: Stylus Press, 2005).

Wilson, Maja. Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment . (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2006).

Authored by James Gregory (September, 2014)

Updated by James Gregory (September, 2015)

Updated by James Gregory (February, 2016)

Updated by Andi Rehak (February, 2017)

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Rubrics are a set of criteria to evaluate performance on an assignment or assessment. Rubrics can communicate expectations regarding the quality of work to students and provide a standardized framework for instructors to assess work. Rubrics can be used for both formative and summative assessment. They are also crucial in encouraging self-assessment of work and structuring peer-assessments. 

Why use rubrics?

Rubrics are an important tool to assess learning in an equitable and just manner. This is because they enable:

• A common set of standards and criteria to be uniformly applied, which can mitigate bias
• Transparency regarding the standards and criteria on which students are evaluated
• Efficient grading with timely and actionable feedback 
• Identifying areas in which students need additional support and guidance 
• The use of objective, criterion-referenced metrics for evaluation 

Some instructors may be reluctant to provide a rubric to grade assessments under the perception that it stifles student creativity (Haugnes & Russell, 2018). However, sharing the purpose of an assessment and criteria for success in the form of a rubric along with relevant examples has been shown to particularly improve the success of BIPOC, multiracial, and first-generation students (Jonsson, 2014; Winkelmes, 2016). Improved success in assessments is generally associated with an increased sense of belonging which, in turn, leads to higher student retention and more equitable outcomes in the classroom (Calkins & Winkelmes, 2018; Weisz et al., 2023). By not providing a rubric, faculty may risk having students guess the criteria on which they will be evaluated. When students have to guess what expectations are, it may unfairly disadvantage students who are first-generation, BIPOC, international, or otherwise have not been exposed to the cultural norms that have dominated higher-ed institutions in the U.S (Shapiro et al., 2023). Moreover, in such cases, criteria may be applied inconsistently for students leading to biases in grades awarded to students.

Steps for Creating a Rubric

Clearly state the purpose of the assessment, which topic(s) learners are being tested on, the type of assessment (e.g., a presentation, essay, group project), the skills they are being tested on (e.g., writing, comprehension, presentation, collaboration), and the goal of the assessment for instructors (e.g., gauging formative or summative understanding of the topic). 

Determine the specific criteria or dimensions to assess in the assessment. These criteria should align with the learning objectives or outcomes to be evaluated. These criteria typically form the rows in a rubric grid and describe the skills, knowledge, or behavior to be demonstrated. The set of criteria may include, for example, the idea/content, quality of arguments, organization, grammar, citations and/or creativity in writing. These criteria may form separate rows or be compiled in a single row depending on the type of rubric.

(See row headers  of  Figure 1 )

Create a scale of performance levels that describe the degree of proficiency attained for each criterion. The scale typically has 4 to 5 levels (although there may be fewer levels depending on the type of rubrics used). The rubrics should also have meaningful labels (e.g., not meeting expectations, approaching expectations, meeting expectations, exceeding expectations). When assigning levels of performance, use inclusive language that can inculcate a growth mindset among students, especially when work may be otherwise deemed to not meet the mark. Some examples include, “Does not yet meet expectations,” “Considerable room for improvement,” “ Progressing,” “Approaching,” “Emerging,” “Needs more work,” instead of using terms like “Unacceptable,” “Fails,” “Poor,” or “Below Average.”

(See column headers  of  Figure 1 )

Develop a clear and concise descriptor for each combination of criterion and performance level. These descriptors should provide examples or explanations of what constitutes each level of performance for each criterion. Typically, instructors should start by describing the highest and lowest level of performance for that criterion and then describing intermediate performance for that criterion. It is important to keep the language uniform across all columns, e.g., use syntax and words that are aligned in each column for a given criteria. 

(See cells  of  Figure 1 )

It is important to consider how each criterion is weighted and for each criterion to reflect the importance of learning objectives being tested. For example, if the primary goal of a research proposal is to test mastery of content and application of knowledge, these criteria should be weighted more heavily compared to other criteria (e.g., grammar, style of presentation). This can be done by associating a different scoring system for each criteria (e.g., Following a scale of 8-6-4-2 points for each level of performance in higher weight criteria and 4-3-2-1 points for each level of performance for lower weight criteria). Further, the number of points awarded across levels of performance should be evenly spaced (e.g., 10-8-6-4 instead of 10-6-3-1). Finally, if there is a letter grade associated with a particular assessment, consider how it relates to scores. For example, instead of having students receive an A only if they received the highest level of performance on each criterion, consider assigning an A grade to a range of scores (28 - 30 total points) or a combination of levels of performance (e.g., exceeds expectations on higher weight criteria and meets expectations on other criteria). 

(See the numerical values in the column headers  of  Figure 1 )

Figure 1:  Graphic describing the five basic elements of a rubric

Note : Consider using a template rubric that can be used to evaluate similar activities in the classroom to avoid the fatigue of developing multiple rubrics. Some tools include Rubistar or iRubric which provide suggested words for each criteria depending on the type of assessment. Additionally, the above format can be incorporated in rubrics that can be directly added in Canvas or in the grid view of rubrics in gradescope which are common grading tools. Alternately, tables within a Word processor or Spreadsheet may also be used to build a rubric. You may also adapt the example rubrics provided below to the specific learning goals for the assessment using the blank template rubrics we have provided against each type of rubric. Watch the linked video for a quick introduction to designing a rubric . Word document (docx) files linked below will automatically download to your device whereas pdf files will open in a new tab.

Types of Rubrics

In these rubrics, one specifies at least two criteria and provides a separate score for each criterion. The steps outlined above for creating a rubric are typical for an analytic style rubric. Analytic rubrics are used to provide detailed feedback to students and help identify strengths as well as particular areas in need of improvement. These can be particularly useful when providing formative feedback to students, for student peer assessment and self-assessments, or for project-based summative assessments that evaluate student learning across multiple criteria. You may use a blank analytic rubric template (docx) or adapt an existing sample of an analytic rubric (pdf) . 

Fig 2: Graphic describing a sample analytic rubric (adopted from George Mason University, 2013)

These are a subset of analytical rubrics that are typically used to assess student performance and engagement during a learning period but not the end product. Such rubrics are typically used to assess soft skills and behaviors that are less tangible (e.g., intercultural maturity, empathy, collaboration skills). These rubrics are useful in assessing the extent to which students develop a particular skill, ability, or value in experiential learning based programs or skills. They are grounded in the theory of development (King, 2005). Examples include an intercultural knowledge and competence rubric (docx)  and a global learning rubric (docx) .

These rubrics consider all criteria evaluated on one scale, providing a single score that gives an overall impression of a student’s performance on an assessment.These rubrics also emphasize the overall quality of a student’s work, rather than delineating shortfalls of their work. However, a limitation of the holistic rubrics is that they are not useful for providing specific, nuanced feedback or to identify areas of improvement. Thus, they might be useful when grading summative assessments in which students have previously received detailed feedback using analytic or single-point rubrics. They may also be used to provide quick formative feedback for smaller assignments where not more than 2-3 criteria are being tested at once. Try using our blank holistic rubric template docx)  or adapt an existing sample of holistic rubric (pdf) . 

Fig 3: Graphic describing a sample holistic rubric (adopted from Teaching Commons, DePaul University)

These rubrics contain only two levels of performance (e.g., yes/no, present/absent) across a longer list of criteria (beyond 5 levels). Checklist rubrics have the advantage of providing a quick assessment of criteria given the binary assessment of criteria that are either met or are not met. Consequently, they are preferable when initiating self- or  peer-assessments of learning given that it simplifies evaluations to be more objective and criteria can elicit only one of two responses allowing uniform and quick grading. For similar reasons, such rubrics are useful for faculty in providing quick formative feedback since it immediately highlights the specific criteria to improve on. Such rubrics are also used in grading summative assessments in courses utilizing alternative grading systems such as specifications grading, contract grading or a credit/no credit grading system wherein a minimum threshold of performance has to be met for the assessment. Having said that, developing rubrics from existing analytical rubrics may require considerable investment upfront given that criteria have to be phrased in a way that can only elicit binary responses. Here is a link to the checklist rubric template (docx) .

Fig. 4: Graphic describing a sample checklist rubric

A single point rubric is a modified version of a checklist style rubric, in that it specifies a single column of criteria. However, rather than only indicating whether expectations are met or not, as happens in a checklist rubric, a single point rubric allows instructors to specify ways in which criteria exceeds or does not meet expectations. Here the criteria to be tested are laid out in a central column describing the average expectation for the assignment. Instructors indicate areas of improvement on the left side of the criteria, whereas areas of strength in student performance are indicated on the right side. These types of rubrics provide flexibility in scoring, and are typically used in courses with alternative grading systems such as ungrading or contract grading. However, they do require the instructors to provide detailed feedback for each student, which can be unfeasible for assessments in large classes. Here is a link to the single point rubric template (docx) .

Fig. 5 Graphic describing a single point rubric (adopted from Teaching Commons, DePaul University)

Best Practices for Designing and Implementing Rubrics

When designing the rubric format, descriptors and criteria should be presented in a way that is compatible with screen readers and reading assistive technology. For example, avoid using only color, jargon, or complex terminology to convey information. In case you do use color, pictures or graphics, try providing alternative formats for rubrics, such as plain text documents. Explore resources from the CU Digital Accessibility Office to learn more.

Co-creating rubrics can help students to engage in higher-order thinking skills such as analysis and evaluation. Further, it allows students to take ownership of their own learning by determining the criteria of their work they aspire towards. For graduate classes or upper-level students, one way of doing this may be to provide learning outcomes of the project, and let students develop the rubric on their own. However, students in introductory classes may need more scaffolding by providing them a draft and leaving room for modification (Stevens & Levi 2013). Watch the linked video for tips on co-creating rubrics with students . Further, involving teaching assistants in designing a rubric can help in getting feedback on expectations for an assessment prior to implementing and norming a rubric. 

When first designing a rubric, it is important to compare grades awarded for the same assessment by multiple graders to make sure the criteria are applied uniformly and reliably for the same level of performance. Further, ensure that the levels of performance in student work can be adequately distinguished using a rubric. Such a norming protocol is particularly important to also do at the start of any course in which multiple graders use the same rubric to grade an assessment (e.g., recitation sections, lab sections, teaching team). Here, instructors may select a subset of assignments that all graders evaluate using the same rubric, followed by a discussion to identify any discrepancies in criteria applied and ways to address them. Such strategies can make the rubrics more reliable, effective, and clear.

Sharing the rubric with students prior to an assessment can help familiarize students with an instructor’s expectations. This can help students master their learning outcomes by guiding their work in the appropriate direction and increase student motivation. Further, providing the rubric to students can help encourage metacognition and ability to self-assess learning.

Sample Rubrics

Below are links to rubric templates designed by a team of experts assembled by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to assess 16 major learning goals. These goals are a part of the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) program. All of these examples are analytic rubrics and have detailed criteria to test specific skills. However, since any given assessment typically tests multiple skills, instructors are encouraged to develop their own rubric by utilizing criteria picked from a combination of the rubrics linked below.

• Civic knowledge and engagement-local and global
• Creative thinking
• Critical thinking
• Ethical reasoning
• Foundations and skills for lifelong learning
• Information literacy
• Integrative and applied learning
• Intercultural knowledge and competence
• Inquiry and analysis
• Oral communication
• Problem solving
• Quantitative literacy
• Written Communication

Note : Clicking on the above links will automatically download them to your device in Microsoft Word format. These links have been created and are hosted by Kansas State University . Additional information regarding the VALUE Rubrics may be found on the AAC&U homepage . 

Below are links to sample rubrics that have been developed for different types of assessments. These rubrics follow the analytical rubric template, unless mentioned otherwise. However, these rubrics can be modified into other types of rubrics (e.g., checklist, holistic or single point rubrics) based on the grading system and goal of assessment (e.g., formative or summative). As mentioned previously, these rubrics can be modified using the blank template provided.

• Oral presentations  
• Painting Portfolio (single-point rubric)
• Research Paper
• Video Storyboard

Additional information:

Office of Assessment and Curriculum Support. (n.d.). Creating and using rubrics . University of Hawai’i, Mānoa

Calkins, C., & Winkelmes, M. A. (2018). A teaching method that boosts UNLV student retention . UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo , 3.

Fraile, J., Panadero, E., & Pardo, R. (2017). Co-creating rubrics: The effects on self-regulated learning, self-efficacy and performance of establishing assessment criteria with students. Studies In Educational Evaluation , 53, 69-76

Haugnes, N., & Russell, J. L. (2016). Don’t box me in: Rubrics for àrtists and Designers . To Improve the Academy , 35 (2), 249–283. 

Jonsson, A. (2014). Rubrics as a way of providing transparency in assessment , Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education , 39(7), 840-852 

McCartin, L. (2022, February 1). Rubrics! an equity-minded practice . University of Northern Colorado

Shapiro, S., Farrelly, R., & Tomaš, Z. (2023). Chapter 4: Effective and Equitable Assignments and Assessments. Fostering International Student Success in higher education (pp, 61-87, second edition). TESOL Press.

Stevens, D. D., & Levi, A. J. (2013). Introduction to rubrics: An assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning (second edition). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Teaching Commons (n.d.). Types of Rubrics . DePaul University

Teaching Resources (n.d.). Rubric best practices, examples, and templates . NC State University 

Winkelmes, M., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Weavil, K.H. (2016). A teaching intervention that increases underserved college students’ success . Peer Review , 8(1/2), 31-36.

Weisz, C., Richard, D., Oleson, K., Winkelmes, M.A., Powley, C., Sadik, A., & Stone, B. (in progress, 2023). Transparency, confidence, belonging and skill development among 400 community college students in the state of Washington . 

Association of American Colleges and Universities. (2009). Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) . 

Canvas Community. (2021, August 24). How do I add a rubric in a course? Canvas LMS Community.

 Center for Teaching & Learning. (2021, March 03). Overview of Rubrics . University of Colorado, Boulder

 Center for Teaching & Learning. (2021, March 18). Best practices to co-create rubrics with students . University of Colorado, Boulder.

Chase, D., Ferguson, J. L., & Hoey, J. J. (2014). Assessment in creative disciplines: Quantifying and qualifying the aesthetic . Common Ground Publishing.

Feldman, J. (2018). Grading for equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms . Corwin Press, CA.

Gradescope (n.d.). Instructor: Assignment - Grade Submissions . Gradescope Help Center. 

Henning, G., Baker, G., Jankowski, N., Lundquist, A., & Montenegro, E. (Eds.). (2022). Reframing assessment to center equity . Stylus Publishing. 

 King, P. M. & Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2005). A developmental model of intercultural maturity . Journal of College Student Development . 46(2), 571-592.

Selke, M. J. G. (2013). Rubric assessment goes to college: Objective, comprehensive evaluation of student work. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

The Institute for Habits of Mind. (2023, January 9). Creativity Rubrics - The Institute for Habits of Mind . 

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Creating and using rubrics.

A rubric describes the criteria that will be used to evaluate a specific task, such as a student writing assignment, poster, oral presentation, or other project. Rubrics allow instructors to communicate expectations to students, allow students to check in on their progress mid-assignment, and can increase the reliability of scores. Research suggests that when rubrics are used on an instructional basis (for instance, included with an assignment prompt for reference), students tend to utilize and appreciate them (Reddy and Andrade, 2010).

Rubrics generally exist in tabular form and are composed of:

• A description of the task that is being evaluated,
• The criteria that is being evaluated (row headings),
• A rating scale that demonstrates different levels of performance (column headings), and
• A description of each level of performance for each criterion (within each box of the table).

When multiple individuals are grading, rubrics also help improve the consistency of scoring across all graders. Instructors should insure that the structure, presentation, consistency, and use of their rubrics pass rigorous standards of validity , reliability , and fairness (Andrade, 2005).

Major Types of Rubrics

There are two major categories of rubrics:

• Holistic : In this type of rubric, a single score is provided based on raters’ overall perception of the quality of the performance. Holistic rubrics are useful when only one attribute is being evaluated, as they detail different levels of performance within a single attribute. This category of rubric is designed for quick scoring but does not provide detailed feedback. For these rubrics, the criteria may be the same as the description of the task.
• Analytic : In this type of rubric, scores are provided for several different criteria that are being evaluated. Analytic rubrics provide more detailed feedback to students and instructors about their performance. Scoring is usually more consistent across students and graders with analytic rubrics.

Rubrics utilize a scale that denotes level of success with a particular assignment, usually a 3-, 4-, or 5- category grid:

Figure 1: Grading Rubrics: Sample Scales (Brown Sheridan Center)

Sample Rubrics

Instructors can consider a sample holistic rubric developed for an English Writing Seminar course at Yale.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities also has a number of free (non-invasive free account required) analytic rubrics that can be downloaded and modified by instructors. These 16 VALUE rubrics enable instructors to measure items such as inquiry and analysis, critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, quantitative literacy, teamwork, problem-solving, and more.

Recommendations

The following provides a procedure for developing a rubric, adapted from Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning :

• Define the goal and purpose of the task that is being evaluated - Before constructing a rubric, instructors should review their learning outcomes associated with a given assignment. Are skills, content, and deeper conceptual knowledge clearly defined in the syllabus , and do class activities and assignments work towards intended outcomes? The rubric can only function effectively if goals are clear and student work progresses towards them.
• Decide what kind of rubric to use - The kind of rubric used may depend on the nature of the assignment, intended learning outcomes (for instance, does the task require the demonstration of several different skills?), and the amount and kind of feedback students will receive (for instance, is the task a formative or a summative assessment ?). Instructors can read the above, or consider “Additional Resources” for kinds of rubrics.
• Define the criteria - Instructors can review their learning outcomes and assessment parameters to determine specific criteria for the rubric to cover. Instructors should consider what knowledge and skills are required for successful completion, and create a list of criteria that assess outcomes across different vectors (comprehensiveness, maturity of thought, revisions, presentation, timeliness, etc). Criteria should be distinct and clearly described, and ideally, not surpass seven in number.
• Define the rating scale to measure levels of performance - Whatever rating scale instructors choose, they should insure that it is clear, and review it in-class to field student question and concerns. Instructors can consider if the scale will include descriptors or only be numerical, and might include prompts on the rubric for achieving higher achievement levels. Rubrics typically include 3-5 levels in their rating scales (see Figure 1 above).
• Write descriptions for each performance level of the rating scale - Each level should be accompanied by a descriptive paragraph that outlines ideals for each level, lists or names all performance expectations within the level, and if possible, provides a detail or example of ideal performance within each level. Across the rubric, descriptions should be parallel, observable, and measurable.
• Test and revise the rubric - The rubric can be tested before implementation, by arranging for writing or testing conditions with several graders or TFs who can use the rubric together. After grading with the rubric, graders might grade a similar set of materials without the rubric to assure consistency. Instructors can consider discrepancies, share the rubric and results with faculty colleagues for further opinions, and revise the rubric for use in class. Instructors might also seek out colleagues’ rubrics as well, for comparison. Regarding course implementation, instructors might consider passing rubrics out during the first class, in order to make grading expectations clear as early as possible. Rubrics should fit on one page, so that descriptions and criteria are viewable quickly and simultaneously. During and after a class or course, instructors can collect feedback on the rubric’s clarity and effectiveness from TFs and even students through anonymous surveys. Comparing scores and quality of assignments with parallel or previous assignments that did not include a rubric can reveal effectiveness as well. Instructors should feel free to revise a rubric following a course too, based on student performance and areas of confusion.

Additional Resources

Cox, G. C., Brathwaite, B. H., & Morrison, J. (2015). The Rubric: An assessment tool to guide students and markers. Advances in Higher Education, 149-163.

Creating and Using Rubrics - Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and & Educational Innovation

Creating a Rubric - UC Denver Center for Faculty Development

Grading Rubric Design - Brown University Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Moskal, B. M. (2000). Scoring rubrics: What, when and how? Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation 7(3).

Quinlan A. M., (2011) A Complete Guide to Rubrics: Assessment Made Easy for Teachers of K-college 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Andrade, H. (2005). Teaching with Rubrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. College Teaching 53(1):27-30.

Reddy, Y. M., & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(4), 435-448.

Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning , Brown University

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Creating and using rubrics.

Last Updated: 4 March 2024. Click here to view archived versions of this page.

On this page:

• What is a rubric?
• Why use a rubric?
• What are the parts of a rubric?
• Developing a rubric
• Sample rubrics
• Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration
• Suggestions for using rubrics in courses
• Equity-minded considerations for rubric development
• Tips for developing a rubric
• Additional resources & sources consulted

Note:  The information and resources contained here serve only as a primers to the exciting and diverse perspectives in the field today. This page will be continually updated to reflect shared understandings of equity-minded theory and practice in learning assessment.

1. What is a rubric?

A rubric is an assessment tool often shaped like a matrix, which describes levels of achievement in a specific area of performance, understanding, or behavior.

There are two main types of rubrics:

Analytic Rubric : An analytic rubric specifies at least two characteristics to be assessed at each performance level and provides a separate score for each characteristic (e.g., a score on “formatting” and a score on “content development”).

• Advantages: provides more detailed feedback on student performance; promotes consistent scoring across students and between raters
• Disadvantages: more time consuming than applying a holistic rubric
• You want to see strengths and weaknesses.
• You want detailed feedback about student performance.

Holistic Rubric: A holistic rubrics provide a single score based on an overall impression of a student’s performance on a task.

• Advantages: quick scoring; provides an overview of student achievement; efficient for large group scoring
• Disadvantages: does not provided detailed information; not diagnostic; may be difficult for scorers to decide on one overall score
• You want a quick snapshot of achievement.
• A single dimension is adequate to define quality.

2. Why use a rubric?

• A rubric creates a common framework and language for assessment.
• Complex products or behaviors can be examined efficiently.
• Well-trained reviewers apply the same criteria and standards.
• Rubrics are criterion-referenced, rather than norm-referenced. Raters ask, “Did the student meet the criteria for level 5 of the rubric?” rather than “How well did this student do compared to other students?”
• Using rubrics can lead to substantive conversations among faculty.
• When faculty members collaborate to develop a rubric, it promotes shared expectations and grading practices.

Faculty members can use rubrics for program assessment. Examples:

The English Department collected essays from students in all sections of English 100. A random sample of essays was selected. A team of faculty members evaluated the essays by applying an analytic scoring rubric. Before applying the rubric, they “normed”–that is, they agreed on how to apply the rubric by scoring the same set of essays and discussing them until consensus was reached (see below: “6. Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration”). Biology laboratory instructors agreed to use a “Biology Lab Report Rubric” to grade students’ lab reports in all Biology lab sections, from 100- to 400-level. At the beginning of each semester, instructors met and discussed sample lab reports. They agreed on how to apply the rubric and their expectations for an “A,” “B,” “C,” etc., report in 100-level, 200-level, and 300- and 400-level lab sections. Every other year, a random sample of students’ lab reports are selected from 300- and 400-level sections. Each of those reports are then scored by a Biology professor. The score given by the course instructor is compared to the score given by the Biology professor. In addition, the scores are reported as part of the program’s assessment report. In this way, the program determines how well it is meeting its outcome, “Students will be able to write biology laboratory reports.”

3. What are the parts of a rubric?

Rubrics are composed of four basic parts. In its simplest form, the rubric includes:

• A task description . The outcome being assessed or instructions students received for an assignment.
• The characteristics to be rated (rows) . The skills, knowledge, and/or behavior to be demonstrated.
• Beginning, approaching, meeting, exceeding
• Emerging, developing, proficient, exemplary 
• Novice, intermediate, intermediate high, advanced 
• Beginning, striving, succeeding, soaring
• Also called a “performance description.” Explains what a student will have done to demonstrate they are at a given level of mastery for a given characteristic.

4. Developing a rubric

Step 1: Identify what you want to assess

Step 2: Identify the characteristics to be rated (rows). These are also called “dimensions.”

• Specify the skills, knowledge, and/or behaviors that you will be looking for.
• Limit the characteristics to those that are most important to the assessment.

Step 3: Identify the levels of mastery/scale (columns).

Tip: Aim for an even number (4 or 6) because when an odd number is used, the middle tends to become the “catch-all” category.

Step 4: Describe each level of mastery for each characteristic/dimension (cells).

• Describe the best work you could expect using these characteristics. This describes the top category.
• Describe an unacceptable product. This describes the lowest category.
• Develop descriptions of intermediate-level products for intermediate categories.

Important: Each description and each characteristic should be mutually exclusive.

Step 5: Test rubric.

• Apply the rubric to an assignment.
• Share with colleagues.

Tip: Faculty members often find it useful to establish the minimum score needed for the student work to be deemed passable. For example, faculty members may decided that a “1” or “2” on a 4-point scale (4=exemplary, 3=proficient, 2=marginal, 1=unacceptable), does not meet the minimum quality expectations. We encourage a standard setting session to set the score needed to meet expectations (also called a “cutscore”). Monica has posted materials from standard setting workshops, one offered on campus and the other at a national conference (includes speaker notes with the presentation slides). They may set their criteria for success as 90% of the students must score 3 or higher. If assessment study results fall short, action will need to be taken.

Step 6: Discuss with colleagues. Review feedback and revise.

Important: When developing a rubric for program assessment, enlist the help of colleagues. Rubrics promote shared expectations and consistent grading practices which benefit faculty members and students in the program.

5. Sample rubrics

Rubrics are on our Rubric Bank page and in our Rubric Repository (Graduate Degree Programs) . More are available at the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center in Crawford Hall (hard copy).

These open as Word documents and are examples from outside UH.

• Group Participation (analytic rubric)
• Participation (holistic rubric)
• Design Project (analytic rubric)
• Critical Thinking (analytic rubric)
• Media and Design Elements (analytic rubric; portfolio)
• Writing (holistic rubric; portfolio)

6. Scoring rubric group orientation and calibration

When using a rubric for program assessment purposes, faculty members apply the rubric to pieces of student work (e.g., reports, oral presentations, design projects). To produce dependable scores, each faculty member needs to interpret the rubric in the same way. The process of training faculty members to apply the rubric is called “norming.” It’s a way to calibrate the faculty members so that scores are accurate and consistent across the faculty. Below are directions for an assessment coordinator carrying out this process.

Suggested materials for a scoring session:

• Copies of the rubric
• Copies of the “anchors”: pieces of student work that illustrate each level of mastery. Suggestion: have 6 anchor pieces (2 low, 2 middle, 2 high)
• Score sheets
• Extra pens, tape, post-its, paper clips, stapler, rubber bands, etc.

Hold the scoring session in a room that:

• Allows the scorers to spread out as they rate the student pieces
• Has a chalk or white board, smart board, or flip chart
• Describe the purpose of the activity, stressing how it fits into program assessment plans. Explain that the purpose is to assess the program, not individual students or faculty, and describe ethical guidelines, including respect for confidentiality and privacy.
• Describe the nature of the products that will be reviewed, briefly summarizing how they were obtained.
• Describe the scoring rubric and its categories. Explain how it was developed.
• Analytic: Explain that readers should rate each dimension of an analytic rubric separately, and they should apply the criteria without concern for how often each score (level of mastery) is used. Holistic: Explain that readers should assign the score or level of mastery that best describes the whole piece; some aspects of the piece may not appear in that score and that is okay. They should apply the criteria without concern for how often each score is used.
• Give each scorer a copy of several student products that are exemplars of different levels of performance. Ask each scorer to independently apply the rubric to each of these products, writing their ratings on a scrap sheet of paper.
• Once everyone is done, collect everyone’s ratings and display them so everyone can see the degree of agreement. This is often done on a blackboard, with each person in turn announcing his/her ratings as they are entered on the board. Alternatively, the facilitator could ask raters to raise their hands when their rating category is announced, making the extent of agreement very clear to everyone and making it very easy to identify raters who routinely give unusually high or low ratings.
• Guide the group in a discussion of their ratings. There will be differences. This discussion is important to establish standards. Attempt to reach consensus on the most appropriate rating for each of the products being examined by inviting people who gave different ratings to explain their judgments. Raters should be encouraged to explain by making explicit references to the rubric. Usually consensus is possible, but sometimes a split decision is developed, e.g., the group may agree that a product is a “3-4” split because it has elements of both categories. This is usually not a problem. You might allow the group to revise the rubric to clarify its use but avoid allowing the group to drift away from the rubric and learning outcome(s) being assessed.
• Once the group is comfortable with how the rubric is applied, the rating begins. Explain how to record ratings using the score sheet and explain the procedures. Reviewers begin scoring.
• Are results sufficiently reliable?
• What do the results mean? Are we satisfied with the extent of students’ learning?
• Who needs to know the results?
• What are the implications of the results for curriculum, pedagogy, or student support services?
• How might the assessment process, itself, be improved?

7. Suggestions for using rubrics in courses

• Use the rubric to grade student work. Hand out the rubric with the assignment so students will know your expectations and how they’ll be graded. This should help students master your learning outcomes by guiding their work in appropriate directions.
• Use a rubric for grading student work and return the rubric with the grading on it. Faculty save time writing extensive comments; they just circle or highlight relevant segments of the rubric. Some faculty members include room for additional comments on the rubric page, either within each section or at the end.
• Develop a rubric with your students for an assignment or group project. Students can the monitor themselves and their peers using agreed-upon criteria that they helped develop. Many faculty members find that students will create higher standards for themselves than faculty members would impose on them.
• Have students apply your rubric to sample products before they create their own. Faculty members report that students are quite accurate when doing this, and this process should help them evaluate their own projects as they are being developed. The ability to evaluate, edit, and improve draft documents is an important skill.
• Have students exchange paper drafts and give peer feedback using the rubric. Then, give students a few days to revise before submitting the final draft to you. You might also require that they turn in the draft and peer-scored rubric with their final paper.
• Have students self-assess their products using the rubric and hand in their self-assessment with the product; then, faculty members and students can compare self- and faculty-generated evaluations.

8. Equity-minded considerations for rubric development

Ensure transparency by making rubric criteria public, explicit, and accessible

Transparency is a core tenet of equity-minded assessment practice. Students should know and understand how they are being evaluated as early as possible.

• Ensure the rubric is publicly available & easily accessible. We recommend publishing on your program or department website.
• Have course instructors introduce and use the program rubric in their own courses. Instructors should explain to students connections between the rubric criteria and the course and program SLOs.
• Write rubric criteria using student-focused and culturally-relevant language to ensure students understand the rubric’s purpose, the expectations it sets, and how criteria will be applied in assessing their work.
• For example, instructors can provide annotated examples of student work using the rubric language as a resource for students.

Meaningfully involve students and engage multiple perspectives

Rubrics created by faculty alone risk perpetuating unseen biases as the evaluation criteria used will inherently reflect faculty perspectives, values, and assumptions. Including students and other stakeholders in developing criteria helps to ensure performance expectations are aligned between faculty, students, and community members. Additional perspectives to be engaged might include community members, alumni, co-curricular faculty/staff, field supervisors, potential employers, or current professionals. Consider the following strategies to meaningfully involve students and engage multiple perspectives:

• Have students read each evaluation criteria and talk out loud about what they think it means. This will allow you to identify what language is clear and where there is still confusion.
• Ask students to use their language to interpret the rubric and provide a student version of the rubric.
• If you use this strategy, it is essential to create an inclusive environment where students and faculty have equal opportunity to provide input.
• Be sure to incorporate feedback from faculty and instructors who teach diverse courses, levels, and in different sub-disciplinary topics. Faculty and instructors who teach introductory courses have valuable experiences and perspectives that may differ from those who teach higher-level courses.
• Engage multiple perspectives including co-curricular faculty/staff, alumni, potential employers, and community members for feedback on evaluation criteria and rubric language. This will ensure evaluation criteria reflect what is important for all stakeholders.
• Elevate historically silenced voices in discussions on rubric development. Ensure stakeholders from historically underrepresented communities have their voices heard and valued.

Honor students’ strengths in performance descriptions

When describing students’ performance at different levels of mastery, use language that describes what students can do rather than what they cannot do. For example:

• Instead of: Students cannot make coherent arguments consistently.
• Use: Students can make coherent arguments occasionally.

9. Tips for developing a rubric

• Find and adapt an existing rubric! It is rare to find a rubric that is exactly right for your situation, but you can adapt an already existing rubric that has worked well for others and save a great deal of time. A faculty member in your program may already have a good one.
• Evaluate the rubric . Ask yourself: A) Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being assessed? (If yes, success!) B) Does it address anything extraneous? (If yes, delete.) C) Is the rubric useful, feasible, manageable, and practical? (If yes, find multiple ways to use the rubric: program assessment, assignment grading, peer review, student self assessment.)
• Collect samples of student work that exemplify each point on the scale or level. A rubric will not be meaningful to students or colleagues until the anchors/benchmarks/exemplars are available.
• Expect to revise.
• When you have a good rubric, SHARE IT!

10. Additional resources & sources consulted:

Rubric examples:

• Rubrics primarily for undergraduate outcomes and programs
• Rubric repository for graduate degree programs

Workshop presentation slides and handouts:

• Workshop handout (Word document)
• How to Use a Rubric for Program Assessment (2010)
• Techniques for Using Rubrics in Program Assessment by guest speaker Dannelle Stevens (2010)
• Rubrics: Save Grading Time & Engage Students in Learning by guest speaker Dannelle Stevens (2009)
• Rubric Library , Institutional Research, Assessment & Planning, California State University-Fresno
• The Basics of Rubrics [PDF], Schreyer Institute, Penn State
• Creating Rubrics , Teaching Methods and Management, TeacherVision
• Allen, Mary – University of Hawai’i at Manoa Spring 2008 Assessment Workshops, May 13-14, 2008 [available at the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center]
• Mertler, Craig A. (2001). Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 7(25).
• NPEC Sourcebook on Assessment: Definitions and Assessment Methods for Communication, Leadership, Information Literacy, Quantitative Reasoning, and Quantitative Skills . [PDF] (June 2005)

Contributors: Monica Stitt-Bergh, Ph.D., Yao Z. Hill Ph.D., TJ Buckley.

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

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15 Helpful Scoring Rubric Examples for All Grades and Subjects

In the end, they actually make grading easier.

When it comes to student assessment and evaluation, there are a lot of methods to consider. In some cases, testing is the best way to assess a student’s knowledge, and the answers are either right or wrong. But often, assessing a student’s performance is much less clear-cut. In these situations, a scoring rubric is often the way to go, especially if you’re using standards-based grading . Here’s what you need to know about this useful tool, along with lots of rubric examples to get you started.

What is a scoring rubric?

In the United States, a rubric is a guide that lays out the performance expectations for an assignment. It helps students understand what’s required of them, and guides teachers through the evaluation process. (Note that in other countries, the term “rubric” may instead refer to the set of instructions at the beginning of an exam. To avoid confusion, some people use the term “scoring rubric” instead.)

A rubric generally has three parts:

• Performance criteria: These are the various aspects on which the assignment will be evaluated. They should align with the desired learning outcomes for the assignment.
• Rating scale: This could be a number system (often 1 to 4) or words like “exceeds expectations, meets expectations, below expectations,” etc.
• Indicators: These describe the qualities needed to earn a specific rating for each of the performance criteria. The level of detail may vary depending on the assignment and the purpose of the rubric itself.

Rubrics take more time to develop up front, but they help ensure more consistent assessment, especially when the skills being assessed are more subjective. A well-developed rubric can actually save teachers a lot of time when it comes to grading. What’s more, sharing your scoring rubric with students in advance often helps improve performance . This way, students have a clear picture of what’s expected of them and what they need to do to achieve a specific grade or performance rating.

Learn more about why and how to use a rubric here.

Types of Rubric

There are three basic rubric categories, each with its own purpose.

Holistic Rubric

Source: Cambrian College

This type of rubric combines all the scoring criteria in a single scale. They’re quick to create and use, but they have drawbacks. If a student’s work spans different levels, it can be difficult to decide which score to assign. They also make it harder to provide feedback on specific aspects.

Traditional letter grades are a type of holistic rubric. So are the popular “hamburger rubric” and “ cupcake rubric ” examples. Learn more about holistic rubrics here.

Analytic Rubric

Source: University of Nebraska

Analytic rubrics are much more complex and generally take a great deal more time up front to design. They include specific details of the expected learning outcomes, and descriptions of what criteria are required to meet various performance ratings in each. Each rating is assigned a point value, and the total number of points earned determines the overall grade for the assignment.

Though they’re more time-intensive to create, analytic rubrics actually save time while grading. Teachers can simply circle or highlight any relevant phrases in each rating, and add a comment or two if needed. They also help ensure consistency in grading, and make it much easier for students to understand what’s expected of them.

Learn more about analytic rubrics here.

Developmental Rubric

Source: Deb’s Data Digest

A developmental rubric is a type of analytic rubric, but it’s used to assess progress along the way rather than determining a final score on an assignment. The details in these rubrics help students understand their achievements, as well as highlight the specific skills they still need to improve.

Developmental rubrics are essentially a subset of analytic rubrics. They leave off the point values, though, and focus instead on giving feedback using the criteria and indicators of performance.

Learn how to use developmental rubrics here.

Ready to create your own rubrics? Find general tips on designing rubrics here. Then, check out these examples across all grades and subjects to inspire you.

Elementary School Rubric Examples

These elementary school rubric examples come from real teachers who use them with their students. Adapt them to fit your needs and grade level.

Reading Fluency Rubric

You can use this one as an analytic rubric by counting up points to earn a final score, or just to provide developmental feedback. There’s a second rubric page available specifically to assess prosody (reading with expression).

Learn more: Teacher Thrive

Reading Comprehension Rubric

The nice thing about this rubric is that you can use it at any grade level, for any text. If you like this style, you can get a reading fluency rubric here too.

Learn more: Pawprints Resource Center

Written Response Rubric

Rubrics aren’t just for huge projects. They can also help kids work on very specific skills, like this one for improving written responses on assessments.

Learn more: Dianna Radcliffe: Teaching Upper Elementary and More

Interactive Notebook Rubric

If you use interactive notebooks as a learning tool , this rubric can help kids stay on track and meet your expectations.

Learn more: Classroom Nook

Project Rubric

Use this simple rubric as it is, or tweak it to include more specific indicators for the project you have in mind.

Learn more: Tales of a Title One Teacher

Behavior Rubric

Developmental rubrics are perfect for assessing behavior and helping students identify opportunities for improvement. Send these home regularly to keep parents in the loop.

Learn more: Teachers.net Gazette

Middle School Rubric Examples

In middle school, use rubrics to offer detailed feedback on projects, presentations, and more. Be sure to share them with students in advance, and encourage them to use them as they work so they’ll know if they’re meeting expectations.

Argumentative Writing Rubric

Argumentative writing is a part of language arts, social studies, science, and more. That makes this rubric especially useful.

Learn more: Dr. Caitlyn Tucker

Role-Play Rubric

Role-plays can be really useful when teaching social and critical thinking skills, but it’s hard to assess them. Try a rubric like this one to evaluate and provide useful feedback.

Learn more: A Question of Influence

Art Project Rubric

Art is one of those subjects where grading can feel very subjective. Bring some objectivity to the process with a rubric like this.

Source: Art Ed Guru

Diorama Project Rubric

You can use diorama projects in almost any subject, and they’re a great chance to encourage creativity. Simplify the grading process and help kids know how to make their projects shine with this scoring rubric.

Learn more: Historyourstory.com

Oral Presentation Rubric

Rubrics are terrific for grading presentations, since you can include a variety of skills and other criteria. Consider letting students use a rubric like this to offer peer feedback too.

Learn more: Bright Hub Education

High School Rubric Examples

In high school, it’s important to include your grading rubrics when you give assignments like presentations, research projects, or essays. Kids who go on to college will definitely encounter rubrics, so helping them become familiar with them now will help in the future.

Presentation Rubric

Analyze a student’s presentation both for content and communication skills with a rubric like this one. If needed, create a separate one for content knowledge with even more criteria and indicators.

Learn more: Michael A. Pena Jr.

Debate Rubric

Debate is a valuable learning tool that encourages critical thinking and oral communication skills. This rubric can help you assess those skills objectively.

Learn more: Education World

Project-Based Learning Rubric

Implementing project-based learning can be time-intensive, but the payoffs are worth it. Try this rubric to make student expectations clear and end-of-project assessment easier.

Learn more: Free Technology for Teachers

100-Point Essay Rubric

Need an easy way to convert a scoring rubric to a letter grade? This example for essay writing earns students a final score out of 100 points.

Learn more: Learn for Your Life

Drama Performance Rubric

If you’re unsure how to grade a student’s participation and performance in drama class, consider this example. It offers lots of objective criteria and indicators to evaluate.

Learn more: Chase March

How do you use rubrics in your classroom? Come share your thoughts and exchange ideas in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, 25 of the best alternative assessment ideas ..

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Teaching excellence & educational innovation, grading and performance rubrics, what are rubrics.

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each component, at varying levels of mastery. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, etc. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts, or both.

Advantages of Using Rubrics

Using a rubric provides several advantages to both instructors and students. Grading according to an explicit and descriptive set of criteria that is designed to reflect the weighted importance of the objectives of the assignment helps ensure that the instructor’s grading standards don’t change over time. Grading consistency is difficult to maintain over time because of fatigue, shifting standards based on prior experience, or intrusion of other criteria. Furthermore, rubrics can reduce the time spent grading by reducing uncertainty and by allowing instructors to refer to the rubric description associated with a score rather than having to write long comments. Finally, grading rubrics are invaluable in large courses that have multiple graders (other instructors, teaching assistants, etc.) because they can help ensure consistency across graders and reduce the systematic bias that can be introduced between graders.

Used more formatively, rubrics can help instructors get a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of their class. By recording the component scores and tallying up the number of students scoring below an acceptable level on each component, instructors can identify those skills or concepts that need more instructional time and student effort.

Grading rubrics are also valuable to students. A rubric can help instructors communicate to students the specific requirements and acceptable performance standards of an assignment. When rubrics are given to students with the assignment description, they can help students monitor and assess their progress as they work toward clearly indicated goals. When assignments are scored and returned with the rubric, students can more easily recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their work and direct their efforts accordingly.

Examples of Rubrics

Here are links to a diverse set of rubrics designed by Carnegie Mellon faculty and faculty at other institutions. Although your particular field of study and type of assessment activity may not be represented currently, viewing a rubric that is designed for a similar activity may provide you with ideas on how to divide your task into components and how to describe the varying levels of mastery.

Paper Assignments

• Example 1: Philosophy Paper This rubric was designed for student papers in a range of philosophy courses, CMU.
• Example 2: Psychology Assignment Short, concept application homework assignment in cognitive psychology, CMU.
• Example 3: Anthropology Writing Assignments This rubric was designed for a series of short writing assignments in anthropology, CMU.
• Example 4: History Research Paper . This rubric was designed for essays and research papers in history, CMU.
• Example 1: Capstone Project in Design This rubric describes the components and standard of performance from the research phase to the final presentation for a senior capstone project in the School of Design, CMU.
• Example 2: Engineering Design Project This rubric describes performance standards on three aspects of a team project: Research and Design, Communication, and Team Work.

Oral Presentations

• Example 1: Oral Exam This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing performance on an oral exam in an upper-division history course, CMU.
• Example 2: Oral Communication
• Example 3: Group Presentations This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing group presentations in a history course, CMU.

Class Participation/Contributions

• Example 1: Discussion Class This rubric assesses the quality of student contributions to class discussions. This is appropriate for an undergraduate-level course, CMU.
• Example 2: Advanced Seminar This rubric is designed for assessing discussion performance in an advanced undergraduate or graduate seminar. 

Creating rubrics for effective assessment management

How this will help:

Regardless of whether your course is online or face to face, you will need to provide feedback to your students on their strengths and areas for growth. Rubrics are one way to simplify the process of providing feedback and consistent grades to your students.

What are rubrics?

Rubrics are “scoring sheets” for learning tasks. There are multiple flavors of rubrics, but they all articulate two key variables for scoring how successful the learner has been in completing a specific task: the criteria for evaluation and the levels of performance. While you may have used rubrics in your face-to-face class, rubrics become essential when teaching online. Rubrics will not only save you time (a lot of time) when grading assignments, but they also help clarify expectations about how you are assessing students and why they received a particular grade. It also makes grading feel more objective to students (“I see what I did wrong here”), rather than subjective (“The teacher doesn’t like me and that’s why I got this grade.”). 

When designing a rubric, ideally, the criteria for evaluation need to be aligned with the learning objectives [link to learning objectives] of the task. For example, if an instructor asks their learners to create an annotated bibliography for a research assignment, we can imagine that the instructor wants to give the students practice with identifying valid sources on their research topic, citing sources correctly (using the appropriate format), and summarizing sources appropriately. The criteria for evaluation in a rubric for that task might be

• Quality of sources
• Accuracy of citation format for each source type
• Coherence of summaries
• Accuracy of summaries

The levels of performance don’t necessarily have a scale they must align with. Some rubric types might use a typical letter grading scale for their levels – these rubrics often include language like “An A-level response will….” Other rubric types have very few levels of performance; sometimes they are as simple as a binary scale – complete or incomplete (a checklist is an example of this kind of rubric). How an instructor thinks about the levels of performance in a rubric is going to depend on a number of factors, including their own personal preferences and approaches to evaluating student work, and on how the task is being used in the learning experience. If a task is not going to contribute to the final grade for the course, it might not be necessary (or make sense) to provide many fine-grained levels of performance. On the other hand, an assignment that is designed to provide detailed information to the instructor as to how proficient each student is at a set of skills might need many, highly specific levels of performance. At the end of this module, we provide examples of different types of rubrics and structures for levels of performance.

What teaching goals can rubrics help meet?

In an online course, clear communication from the instructor about their expectations is critical for student success and success of the course. Effective feedback, where it is clear to the learner what they have already mastered and where there are gaps in the learners knowledge or skills, is necessary for deep learning. Rubrics help an instructor clearly explain their expectations to the class as a whole while also making it easier to give individual students specific feedback on their learning.

Although one of the practical advantages to using rubrics is to make grading of submitted assignments more efficient, they can be used for many, not mutually exclusive, purposes:

• highlighting growth of a students’ skills or knowledge over time
• articulating to learners the important features of a high-quality submission
• assessing student participation in discussion forums
• guiding student self-assessments 
• guiding student peer-reviews
• providing feedback on ungraded or practice assignments to help students identify where they need to focus their learning efforts.

Examples of different rubrics

Different styles of rubrics are better fits for different task-types and for fulfilling the different teaching aims of a rubric . Here we focus on four different styles with varying levels of complexity: single point rubric, Specific task rubrics, general rubrics, holistic rubrics and analytical rubrics (Arter, J. A., & Chappuis, J., 2007).

Single point rubric

Sometimes, simple is easiest. A single point rubric can tell students whether they met the expectations of the criteria or not. We’d generally recommend not using too many criteria with single point rubrics, they aren’t meant for complicated evaluation. They are great for short assignments like discussion posts.

Example task : Write a 250 discussion post reflecting on the purpose of this week’s readings. (20 points)

Example rubric:

Specific task rubric

This style of rubric is useful for articulating the knowledge and skill objectives (and their respective levels) of a specific assignment.

Example task:

Design and build a trebuchet that is adjustable to launch a 

• 5g weight a distance of 0.5m
• 7g weight a distance of 0.5m
• 10g weight a distance of 0.75m

Holistic rubric

This style of rubric enables a single, overall assessment/evaluation of a learner’s performance on a task

Write a historical research paper discussing ….

( Adapted from http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/rubrics.htm#versus )

General rubric

This style of rubric can be used for multiple, similar assignments to show growth (achieved and opportunities) over time.

Write a blog post appropriate for a specific audience exploring the themes of the reading for this week.

(Adapted from http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196 )

Analytic rubric

This style of rubric is well suited to breaking apart a complex task into component skills and allows for evaluation of those components. It can also help determine the grade for the whole assignment based on performance on the component skills. This style of rubric can look similar to a general rubric but includes detailed grading information.

( Adapted from http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196 )

Designing your own rubric

You can approach designing a rubric from multiple angles. Here we outline just one possible procedure to get started. This approach assumes the learning task is graded, but it can be generalized for other structures for levels of performance. 

• Start with the, “I know it when I see it,” principle. Most instructors have a sense of what makes a reasonable response to a task, even if they haven’t explicitly named those traits before. Write out as many traits of a “meets expectations” response as you can come up with – these will be your first draft of the criteria for learning.
• For each type of criterion, describe what an “A” response looks like. This will be your top level of performance.
• For complicated projects, consider moving systematically down each whole-grade level (B, C, D, F),  describe, in terms parallel to how you described the best response, what student responses at that level often look like. Or, for more simple assignments, create very simple rubrics – either the criterion was achieved or not. Rubrics do not have to be complicated [link to single point rubric]! 
• Share the rubric with a colleague to get feedback or “play test” the rubric using past student work if possible. 
• After grading some student responses with it, you may be tempted to fine-tune some details. However, this is not recommended. For one, Canvas will not allow you to change a rubric once it has been used for grading. But it is also not recommended to change the metrics of grading after students have already been using a rubric to work from. If you find that your rubric is grading students too harshly on a particular criterion, Also, make sure you track what changes you want to make. You may want to adjust your future course rubrics or at least for the next iteration of the task or course.

Practical Tips

• Creating learning objectives for each task, as you design the task, helps to ensure there is alignment between your learning activities and assessments and your course level learning objectives. It also gives a head start for the design of the rubric.
• When creating a rubric, start with just a few levels of performance. It is easier to expand a rubric to include more specificity in the levels of performance than it is to shrink the number of levels. Smaller rubrics are much easier for the instructor to navigate to provide feedback.
• Using a rubric will (likely) not eliminate the need for qualitative feedback to each student, but keeping a document of commonly used responses to students that you can copy and paste from can make the feedback process even more efficient.
• Explicitly have students self-assess their task prior to submitting it. For example, when students submit a paper online, have them include a short (100 word or less) reflection on what they think they did well on the paper, and what they struggled with. That step seems obvious to experts (i.e. instructors) but isn’t obvious to all learners. If students make a habit of this, they will often end up with higher grades because they catch their mistakes before they submit their response(s).
• Canvas and other learning management systems (LMS) have tools that allow you to create point and click rubrics. You can choose to have the tools automatically enter grades into the LMS grade book.
• Rubrics can be used for students to self-evaluate their own performance or to provide feedback to peers.

University of Michigan

CRLT – Sample lab rubrics

Cult of Pedagogy – The single point rubric

Other Resources

The Chronicle of Higher Ed – A rubric for evaluating student blogs

Canvas – Creating a rubric in Canvas

Jon Mueller – Authentic assessment toolkit

Arter, J. A., & Chappuis, J. (2007). Creating & recognizing quality rubrics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Gilbert, P. K., & Dabbagh, N. (2004). How to structure online discussions for meaningful discourse: a case study. British Journal of Educational Technology , 36 (1), 5–18. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2005.00434.x

Wyss, V. L., Freedman, D., & Siebert, C. J. (2014). The Development of a Discussion Rubric for Online Courses: Standardizing Expectations of Graduate Students in Online Scholarly Discussions. TechTrends , 58 (2), 99–107. doi: 10.1007/s11528-014-0741-x

Serena Williams’ father speaks out about Will Smith being banned from the Oscars because of the slap. Richard Williams – father of tennis players Serena and Venus Williams – has spoken out about Will Smith’s “cancellation” over the slap to American actor and stand-up comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars a year ago. He was quoted by NME. Williams, who Smith played in the biographical film “King Richard,” which won the Best Actor award, backed the actor. “I think he did the best of what he had to do, but I never felt disgusted with Mr. Smith. In fact, I appreciate Mr. Smith,” he said. “It’s time everyone forgave Will Smith,” Williams added. In his opinion, the ban on the actor’s participation in the Academy Awards for ten years should be lifted. In late March 2022, during the Oscars, host Chris Rock made an unfortunate joke about Smith’s wife. The showman noted the “amazing, Will Smith oscar very short hair” of Smith’s wife, who suffers from alopecia. Rock compared her to the heroine of “Soldier Jane.” The actor then took the stage, slapped him in the face and yelled at him not to make jokes about his wife.

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• Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
• Instructional Guide
• Rubrics for Assessment

A rubric is an explicit set of criteria used for assessing a particular type of work or performance (TLT Group, n.d.) and provides more details than a single grade or mark. Rubrics, therefore, will help you grade more objectively.

Have your students ever asked, “Why did you grade me that way?” or stated, “You never told us that we would be graded on grammar!” As a grading tool, rubrics can address these and other issues related to assessment: they reduce grading time; they increase objectivity and reduce subjectivity; they convey timely feedback to students and they improve students’ ability to include required elements of an assignment (Stevens & Levi, 2005). Grading rubrics can be used to assess a range of activities in any subject area

Elements of a Rubric

Typically designed as a grid-type structure, a grading rubric includes criteria, levels of performance, scores, and descriptors which become unique assessment tools for any given assignment. The table below illustrates a simple grading rubric with each of the four elements for a history research paper. 

Criteria identify the trait, feature or dimension which is to be measured and include a definition and example to clarify the meaning of each trait being assessed. Each assignment or performance will determine the number of criteria to be scored. Criteria are derived from assignments, checklists, grading sheets or colleagues.

Examples of Criteria for a term paper rubric

• Introduction
• Arguments/analysis
• Grammar and punctuation
• Internal citations

Levels of performance

Levels of performance are often labeled as adjectives which describe the performance levels. Levels of performance determine the degree of performance which has been met and will provide for consistent and objective assessment and better feedback to students. These levels tell students what they are expected to do. Levels of performance can be used without descriptors but descriptors help in achieving objectivity. Words used for levels of performance could influence a student’s interpretation of performance level (such as superior, moderate, poor or above or below average).

Examples to describe levels of performance

• Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor
• Master, Apprentice, Beginner
• Exemplary, Accomplished, Developing, Beginning, Undeveloped
• Complete, Incomplete

Levels of performance determine the degree of performance which has been met and will provide for consistent and objective assessment and better feedback to students.

Scores make up the system of numbers or values used to rate each criterion and often are combined with levels of performance. Begin by asking how many points are needed to adequately describe the range of performance you expect to see in students’ work. Consider the range of possible performance level.

Example of scores for a rubric

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 2, 4, 6, 8

Descriptors

Descriptors are explicit descriptions of the performance and show how the score is derived and what is expected of the students. Descriptors spell out each level (gradation) of performance for each criterion and describe what performance at a particular level looks like. Descriptors describe how well students’ work is distinguished from the work of their peers and will help you to distinguish between each student’s work. Descriptors should be detailed enough to differentiate between the different level and increase the objectivity of the rater.

Descriptors...describe what performance at a particular level looks like.

Developing a Grading Rubric

First, consider using any of a number of existing rubrics available online. Many rubrics can be used “as is.” Or, you could modify a rubric by adding or deleting elements or combining others for one that will suit your needs. Finally, you could create a completely customized rubric using specifically designed rubric software or just by creating a table with the rubric elements. The following steps will help you develop a rubric no matter which option you choose.

• Select a performance/assignment to be assessed. Begin with a performance or assignment which may be difficult to grade and where you want to reduce subjectivity. Is the performance/assignment an authentic task related to learning goals and/or objectives? Are students replicating meaningful tasks found in the real world? Are you encouraging students to problem solve and apply knowledge? Answer these questions as you begin to develop the criteria for your rubric.

Begin with a performance or assignment which may be difficult to grade and where you want to reduce subjectivity.

• List criteria. Begin by brainstorming a list of all criteria, traits or dimensions associated task. Reduce the list by chunking similar criteria and eliminating others until you produce a range of appropriate criteria. A rubric designed for formative and diagnostic assessments might have more criteria than those rubrics rating summative performances (Dodge, 2001). Keep the list of criteria manageable and reasonable.
• Write criteria descriptions. Keep criteria descriptions brief, understandable, and in a logical order for students to follow as they work on the task.
• Determine level of performance adjectives.  Select words or phrases that will explain what performance looks like at each level, making sure they are discrete enough to show real differences. Levels of performance should match the related criterion.
• Develop scores. The scores will determine the ranges of performance in numerical value. Make sure the values make sense in terms of the total points possible: What is the difference between getting 10 points versus 100 points versus 1,000 points? The best and worst performance scores are placed at the ends of the continuum and the other scores are placed appropriately in between. It is suggested to start with fewer levels and to distinguish between work that does not meet the criteria. Also, it is difficult to make fine distinctions using qualitative levels such as never, sometimes, usually or limited acceptance, proficient or NA, poor, fair, good, very good, excellent. How will you make the distinctions?

It is suggested to start with fewer [score] levels and to distinguish between work that does not meet the criteria.

• Write the descriptors. As a student is judged to move up the performance continuum, previous level descriptions are considered achieved in subsequent description levels. Therefore, it is not necessary to include “beginning level” descriptors in the same box where new skills are introduced.
• Evaluate the rubric. As with any instructional tool, evaluate the rubric each time it is used to ensure it matches instructional goals and objectives. Be sure students understand each criterion and how they can use the rubric to their advantage. Consider providing more details about each of the rubric’s areas to further clarify these sections to students. Pilot test new rubrics if possible, review the rubric with a colleague, and solicit students’ feedback for further refinements.

Types of Rubrics

Determining which type of rubric to use depends on what and how you plan to evaluate. There are several types of rubrics including holistic, analytical, general, and task-specific. Each of these will be described below.

All criteria are assessed as a single score. Holistic rubrics are good for evaluating overall performance on a task. Because only one score is given, holistic rubrics tend to be easier to score. However, holistic rubrics do not provide detailed information on student performance for each criterion; the levels of performance are treated as a whole.

• “Use for simple tasks and performances such as reading fluency or response to an essay question . . .
• Getting a quick snapshot of overall quality or achievement
• Judging the impact of a product or performance” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 21)

Each criterion is assessed separately, using different descriptive ratings. Each criterion receives a separate score. Analytical rubrics take more time to score but provide more detailed feedback.

• “Judging complex performances . . . involving several significant [criteria] . . .
• Providing more specific information or feedback to students . . .” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 22)

A generic rubric contains criteria that are general across tasks and can be used for similar tasks or performances. Criteria are assessed separately, as in an analytical rubric.

• “[Use] when students will not all be doing exactly the same task; when students have a choice as to what evidence will be chosen to show competence on a particular skill or product.
• [Use] when instructors are trying to judge consistently in different course sections” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 30)

Task-specific

Assesses a specific task. Unique criteria are assessed separately. However, it may not be possible to account for each and every criterion involved in a particular task which could overlook a student’s unique solution (Arter & McTighe, 2001).

• “It’s easier and faster to get consistent scoring
• [Use] in large-scale and “high-stakes” contexts, such as state-level accountability assessments
• [Use when] you want to know whether students know particular facts, equations, methods, or procedures” (Arter & McTighe, 2001, p 28) 

Grading rubrics are effective and efficient tools which allow for objective and consistent assessment of a range of performances, assignments, and activities. Rubrics can help clarify your expectations and will show students how to meet them, making students accountable for their performance in an easy-to-follow format. The feedback that students receive through a grading rubric can help them improve their performance on revised or subsequent work. Rubrics can help to rationalize grades when students ask about your method of assessment. Rubrics also allow for consistency in grading for those who team teach the same course, for TAs assigned to the task of grading, and serve as good documentation for accreditation purposes. Several online sources exist which can be used in the creation of customized grading rubrics; a few of these are listed below.

Arter, J., & McTighe, J. (2001). Scoring rubrics in the classroom: Using performance criteria for assessing and improving student performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

Stevens, D. D., & Levi, A. J. (2005). Introduction to rubrics: An assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group (n.d.). Rubrics: Definition, tools, examples, references. http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/flashlight/rubrics.htm

Selected Resources

Dodge, B. (2001). Creating a rubric on a given task. http://webquest.sdsu.edu/rubrics/rubrics.html

Wilson, M. (2006). Rethinking rubrics in writing assessment. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Rubric Builders and Generators

eMints.org (2011). Rubric/scoring guide. http://www.emints.org/webquest/rubric.shtml

General Rubric Generator. http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/general/

RubiStar (2008). Create rubrics for your project-based learning activities. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

Suggested citation

Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2012). Rubrics for assessment. In Instructional guide for university faculty and teaching assistants. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide

• Active Learning Activities
• Assessing Student Learning
• Direct vs. Indirect Assessment
• Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques
• Formative and Summative Assessment
• Peer and Self-Assessment
• Reflective Journals and Learning Logs
• The Process of Grading

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Course Design & Development Tutorial

CUNY School of Professional Studies, Office of Faculty Development and Instructional Technology

Home » Writing Up an Assignment and Using Rubrics

• Tutorial Introduction
• 1. Overview of Online Course Design and Development
• 2. Analysis for Design and Understanding Learning Outcomes
• 3. Backward Design
• 4. Planning Out Your Course
• 5. Readability, Pacing, and Accessibility
• 6. Writing Up an Assignment and Using Rubrics
• 7. Constructing Effective Online Discussions
• 8. Designing with Multimedia in Mind
• 9. Building Out in Blackboard
• 10. Redesign and Revision

Writing Up an Assignment and Using Rubrics

This module covers how to write up an assignment so that students can most clearly understand the tasks they need to do to successfully complete an assignment and explains the role that rubrics can play in setting expectations and providing feedback on Assignments.

Writing Up an Assignment

• The essential building blocks of an assignment you need to include
• Diagram—anatomy of an assignment
• Points to keep in mind

A common student complaint is that students have difficulty understanding the instructions or the implications of a class assignment. Writing clear and coherent instructions for assignments is a surprisingly challenging task for any faculty member. Faculty already know what they are looking for but need to find a way to communicate to students who may or may not have experience with the type of assignment, know which elements might be expected, or understand the best way and order in which to proceed with tackling an assignment.

Before faculty write up the instructions for an assignment, they need to:

• Be able to anticipate how their students will understand the assignment and actions they are asked to take.
• Be able to reproduce the steps and logical sequence and grouping of tasks associated with the assignment.

While writing the instructions for an assignment, instructors should consider the following, although some categories might be combined:

Descriptive, Introductory, and Contextual Portion

Provides the details that students need to know before they embark on an assignment and sets out the situation or main job that students are expected to accomplish. For example, “Having read chapter 10 and engaged in discussion on the early American history, you are being asked to write a research paper on a major event of the period 1789-1812 so as to further explore the implications of the issues covered in your text.” It may or may not include details that could be included in the main instructions. For example, “You will select a topic from the list posted below.” Or, “Due April 10th, this paper is worth 20% of your grade and will be evaluated using the rubric posted with the syllabus and other course documents.”

Instructions–main tasks or elements

Lays out the assignment and explains the elements or tasks that must be completed and how/where the assignment is to be submitted, along with a due date(s).

In cases where multiple tasks are involved or when tasks must be completed in a particular order, a numbered list is helpful. Bulleted points often serve to clarify elements and tasks, and indented sections or notes can provide more information about an element or task. You might also use indents to differentiate additional info from the main instructions.

For example, here’s a list of elements that are not dependent on order of tasks:

• Paper length must be 1000-1500 words, not including your reference list
• Include at least 10 sources, with 7 of those being from peer-reviewed articles. Please review the definition of a peer-reviewed article at this website _ _ before conducting your research.
• Use APA citation and documentation throughout. Refer to the APA guide at __ if you need to refresh your knowledge of APA.

The following is a task list that needs to be done in a certain order. Your assignment might include both types of tasks:

Your paper is divided into a series of smaller assignments, due as indicated: 1. Select a paper topic and email the instructor by week 2; 2. Write an outline of your paper and submit it by week 4; 3. Submit a reference list of your 10 sources by week 6, using APA format; 4. Submit the final paper by week 8 via the Blackboard Assignments area.

Students need to know how and where to submit the assignment and the due date or dates (for incremental assignments). For example, “Due _ _ by submitting to the Assignment area in Blackboard, this paper is worth 20% of your grade and will be evaluated using the rubric posted with the syllabus and other course documents.” If the assignment is submitted online but not through an assignment link, you will need to be more explicit. For example, “Submit by posting to the ‘Debate Prep’ discussion forum, creating a new thread and placing your topic name in the subject line.”

Assessment criteria

This can be, at its simplest, a list of required elements, or if some elements are worth more than others, that can be stated or provided via a fully formed rubric. The total number of grade points or percentage of the grade should be stated as well and any late policy. It may be that you have already included some of this information in your syllabus but you should either repeat it or refer students to the more detailed version.

For example, “The essay is worth 25 points of your total grade and will be graded on the following elements:

• Clarity and organization of essay or video presentation—4 pts
• Persuasive and logical argument—7 pts
• Selection of reliable sources—5 pts
• Evidence of research into the issues—5 pts
• Quality of comments on classmates’ essays or presentations—4 pts

Late papers will be docked total points at the rate of 1 point for every day late. No papers or presentations will be accepted after the end of week 5.”

Discussion, notes, or cautionaries

Underscores the importance of something, or warns of a typical shortcoming. These can be included in the most appropriate area of the assignment description or instructions, or might be offered at the end. For example:

• Make sure you receive the instructor’s approval before embarking on your topic.
• Spell check and proofread your final paper before submitting.
• Note that the topics are very specific and focused—make sure that you adhere to the topics as described and not venture into more generalized and broader subjects.

Faculty need to provide information at the right juncture so that students do not get off on the wrong foot. For example, the following note should appear early on in the assignment: “Non-peer reviewed sources must be from a reliable source. Wikipedia is not permitted as one of your ten required sources.”

Concerning multiple options for an assignment

This is a case in which students are provided with a choice in how they will achieve the assignment’s learning objective. Including multiple options for an assignment works well when:

• Options represent a range of different perspectives or approaches from which to choose
• Options present different levels of challenges although all result in meeting the learning outcomes
• Options are all doable with the pacing and time limits for the assignment
• Criteria for fulfilling each option are clearly communicated
• Options that are vastly different in scale or degree of difficulty are provided with different evaluation schema or even different number of grade points—i.e., as in “extra credit. “

Anatomy of a Sample Assignment Write-up

See an annotated version of a sample essay prompt: Anatomy of a Sample Assignment

Points to Consider for a New or Revised Assignment Write-up

Student learning outcome(s) for assignment.

• Can you identify which program and/or course student learning outcome(s) this assignment fulfills? Are there any additional learning outcomes for the assignment?
• What words are used to convey this information to your student? Can just be a statement of the SLOs.

Title for Assignment

• Does the assignment have a title?
• Does the title closely correlate to the actual assignment type? Examples: Research paper, Reflective essay, Video interview project, Review of the literature, Group project, Case study response, etc.
• Does the title also describe the assignment specifically? Example: “Research Paper on Super PACs”
• What words are used to convey this information to your students?
• Does this section contain everything you would want to tell students about the context of the assignment, what the assignment is about, what it is based on, etc.?
• For scaffolded/incremental assignments, is there an overview or summary listing of all related parts and/or the connections between these explained before each is individually detailed?
• If you are creating a short audio or video to provide the introduction or the context for an assignment, do you also provide a text version?
• What words (and/or media) convey this information to your students?

Instructions

• Are the directions or steps for how students should proceed laid out in a logical, easy to follow manner?
• Are the resources (any written, web, or media sources) students are required or permitted to use listed?
• Is where and how to submit the assignment stated clearly? If there are options for other types of delivery such as video presentation or Prezi, are the options for delivery stipulated?
• Are due dates stated clearly?
• Is there a second step for submitting the assignment such as posting to share with the class? If so, state how and where and by when this will take place.
• What words are used to convey this information to your students:

Assessment Criteria or Required Elements

• Are assessment criteria and required elements clearly stated in bulleted format, or is the rubric for the assignment attached?
• If different elements are graded proportionately (percentage, points, etc.), is that explained?
• Is your policy on late assignments explained? (Even if it’s stated elsewhere, as on the syllabus, you may want to include a reference to that with the individual assignment write-up.)

Remedial Plan, If Any

• If there is a remedial plan for the assignment (example: if students are able to retake a quiz or resubmit after feedback on a draft), is it explained clearly?

What is a rubric?

Why should i use a rubric, creating an effective rubric.

• Best practices for using the Rubrics tool on Blackboard
• Samples/additional resources?

Rubrics are useful pedagogical and evaluative tools that list the criteria and point distribution you use to evaluate student work. While you probably have a mental set of guidelines and criteria that guide your assessment of student work, creating and posting a rubric makes these internal criteria more explicit and thus the grading process more transparent, benefiting both you and your students. The student knows what to expect and uses the rubric as a guide in completing assignments, while you will be able to grade more efficiently and consistently and will also find fewer questions from and challenges by students.

It is possible to create a rubric for almost any sort of online course activity. That said, you don’t need a formal rubric for every assignment; adequately detailed, clearly stated criteria can be sufficient. But a rubric is often helpful in communicating more detailed assignment expectations, as well as expectations about what a quality submission may include.

An effective rubric should be detailed enough to cover the complexity of an assignment, as well as its requirements, but simple enough that an instructor can easily distinguish between the higher and lower parts of the grading range. We recommend keeping rubrics to no more than five or six different scoring categories. This will help ensure that you have an efficient process that avoids unnecessary hair-splitting and time-consuming deliberations. You may overlay a late policy onto your rubric (for example, deduct one or a partial point from the total score when postings are made within specific number of days after the due date) or build your late policy into the rubric itself.

In writing rubrics for assignments, you should also address some general expectations about what constitutes quality work for undergraduate or graduate students, including coherent and largely error-free writing, adequate documentation, and the policy on plagiarism. Although writing a good rubric requires some initial investment of time, you may find that the process of constructing one, by requiring thoroughness and attention to each aspect of the assignment, helps produce a more carefully considered and effective assessment of student work.

Best practices for using a rubric on Blackboard

You can create your own rubric from scratch, but there are many educational websites that offer rubrics you can use as a template for developing your own rubrics (see the Find and Create Rubrics section below). Ask your Academic Director if there are standard rubrics recommended by your program for particular assignments, or if they have any effective examples used by other instructors of your course or courses like yours. For more specific step-by-step information on the Rubrics tool in Blackboard, please see “Creating & Using Rubrics in Blackboard.”

• Create your rubric as a table first in Word. This allows you to cut and paste the content into the Rubrics tool on Blackboard. You can also post the original document (as a .pdf or, preferably for accessibility purposes, as a Word document) on your course site as a reference for students. It’s a good idea to create a Rubrics folder on your course site—Course Information, for example—to collect all rubrics so that students can have easy access to them at any time.
• Link your rubrics with its respective assignment(s) on your course site. Once created, associating your rubric with the appropriate assessment will allow you to use the rubric for grading. Once a rubric is created, it can be reused by multiple assignments. So, for example, a rubric for discussion boards
• Make your linked rubrics visible for students. This is optional, but is highly recommended as it permits students to view the rubrics associated with each assessment before they embark on it. Also, when reviewing grading feedback reference to the rubric allows them to understand how they were graded for each assignment and in what areas they may need to improve.

For examples of rubrics, please see the “Resources > Sample Rubrics & Rubrics in Bb” area of the PTO site.

SPS Resources

• Creating & Using Rubrics in Blackboard (SPS)
• Grading with Rubrics (SPS video)

Other Resources on Understanding the Types of Rubrics and Evaluating Rubrics

• Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom
• What’s Still Wrong with Rubrics?
• Evaluating Rubrics
• Types of Rubrics

Find and Create Rubrics

• Association of American Colleges & Universities
• Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education
• “Teachology” Rubric Maker
• Rubric Examples from PSU

Things to Think About

• Do you have an assignment that students often seem to misunderstand? What particular points seem to trip them up or where do they often go astray?
• What concerns, if any, do you have about using a rubric as a primary grading tool?

Things to Do

• Following up upon #1 in “Things to Think About,” identify a problem assignment—one in which students do not perform to standards—and compare it to the “Anatomy of an Assignment” structure or see which questions in “Points to Consider for a New or Revised Assignment Write Up” seem to apply.
• Take a look at some of the rubric resources provided here. Identify a general category or specific example that might be useful for one of your own assignments.
• Practice building out a rubric in Blackboard. (You do not have to associate it with an assignment at this point.)

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• Set up grading and rubrics

Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment

This article is for teachers.

In Classroom, you can create, reuse, and grade with rubrics for individual assignments. You can also export rubrics to share them with other teachers. 

You can give feedback with scored or unscored rubrics. If a rubric is scored, students see their scores when you return their assignments.

Add or view a rubric

Rubric overview.

Create a rubric

You can create up to 50 criteria per rubric and up to 10 performance levels per criterion. 

Note : Before you can create a rubric, the assignment must have a title.

• On a computer, go to classroom.google.com .

• (Optional) If you use scoring, next to Sort the order of points by , select  Descending or Ascending . Note : With scoring, you can add performance levels in any order. The levels automatically arrange by point value. 
• Under Criterion title , enter a criterion, such as  Grammar , Teamwork , or Citations .
• (Optional) To add a criterion description, under  Criterion description , enter the description. 
• Under Points , enter the number of points awarded for the performance level. Note : The rubric's total score automatically updates as you add points.
• Under Level title , enter a title for the performance level, such as  Excellent , Full mastery , or Level A .
• Under Description , enter the expectations for the level.

• To add a blank criterion, in the lower-left corner, click Add a criterion and repeat steps 6–11.

• Click Save .

Reuse a rubric

You can reuse rubrics you previously created. You can preview the rubric you want to reuse, and then edit it in your new assignment. Your edits don’t affect the original rubric. To reuse a rubric, your new assignment needs a title.

• To use a rubric from the same class, under Select rubric , click a title.

• Click Select .

Add a rubric to an existing assignment

• Create rubric
• Reuse rubric
• Import from Sheets

See an assignment’s rubric

Tip: If you don't see a rubric, your teacher hasn't added one to the assignment yet.

Export a rubric to share it:

Go to classroom.google.com  and click Sign In.

Sign in with your Google Account. For example,  [email protected] or [email protected] .  Learn more .

• At the bottom of the assignment, click the rubric.

• To share your entire folder, right-click the Rubrics Exports folder.
• Select Share and enter the teacher's name or email address.
• Click Send .

Import a shared rubric:

• (Optional) Make any edits to the rubric.
• Click Save . Note: If the rubric doesn't save, export and import it again. Edits made to the Sheets file could cause the import to fail.

Edit or delete a rubric

Edit an assignment’s rubric.

Before you start grading:

• You can edit and delete an assignment's rubric.
• You can't "lock" the rubric so that it isn't editable.

If you edit a rubric, the changes apply only to the assignment you're in. After you start grading, you can't edit or delete the assignment's rubric.

Delete an assignment’s rubric

This option isn’t available after you start grading with the rubric.

• To confirm, click  Delete .

Related topics

• Grade with a rubric
• View or update your gradebook
• Open your Google Drive folder as a teacher
• Share files from Google Drive
• Share folders in Google Drive

Was this helpful?

Need more help, try these next steps:.

Documentation

• Marking guide
• 1 About rubrics
• 2 Enable a rubric in your assignment
• 3 Define your rubric
• 4 Grading submissions with a rubric
• 5 Grade calculation
• 6 How students access the rubric
• 7 How teachers access the rubric
• 8.1 Where do you go to edit a rubric?
• 8.2 Can you copy rows of the rubric?
• 8.3 How do you choose another rubric for an assignment?
• 8.4 Why are total grades coming out strange?

About rubrics

Rubrics are an advanced grading method used for criteria-based assessment. The rubric consists of a set of criteria plotted against levels of achievement. A numeric grade is assigned to each level. For each criterion, the assessor chooses the level they judge the work to have reached. The raw rubric score is calculated as a sum of all criteria grades. The final grade is calculated by comparing the actual score with the worst/best possible score that could be received.

Enable a rubric in your assignment

There are two ways.

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

• In your assignment's Settings, expand the Grade section.
• From the Grading method menu, choose Rubric.
• 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.
• Save the settings; Rubric is now enabled for that particular Assignment.

The other is via the Assignment's Settings block:

• From the Assignment's summary page, in its Settings block, click Advanced grading ; a new page displays a menu.
• 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:

• Go to the Rubric editor via the Advanced grading link in the assignment's Settings block.
• Click Define a new rubric from scratch .
• Type in a brief distinctive Name and (if needed) a description.
• 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.
• Describe further criteria and levels as appropriate.
• Set Rubric options .
• 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.
• 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.
• In Moodle 3.2 onwards, a new rubric option 'Calculate grade based on the rubric having a minimum score of 0' allows you to choose whether the grade is calculated as in previous versions of Moodle (box unticked) or whether an improved calculation method is used (box ticked). Please see below for details of the calculation.

Grading submissions with a rubric

• To access the submissions, click a link to the Assignment; its summary page displays.
• Click Grade ; the Student Grading Page displays the work of the first student listed in the Grading Table.
• 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).
• For each criterion, select a level by clicking in its cell; when selected the level displays shaded (default pale green).
• If enabled on the rubric form, you can type in comments for each criterion.
• Save changes.
• 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.

Grade calculation

The rubric normalized score (i.e. basically a percentage grade) is calculated as

Example of a single criterion can be: Overall quality of the paper with the levels 5 - An excellent paper , 3 - A mediocre paper , 0 - A weak paper (the number represent the number of points).

Example: let us have an assessment form with two criteria, which both have four levels 1, 2, 3, 4. The teacher chooses level with 2 points for the first criterion and 3 points for the second criterion. Then the normalized score is:

Note that this calculation may be different from how you intuitively use rubric. For example, when the teacher in the previous example chose both levels with 1 point, the plain sum would be 2 points. But that is actually the lowest possible score so it maps to the grade 0 in Moodle.

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. If you wish to allow teachers to see the rubric, then the site administrator must set the capability mod/assign:viewownsubmissionsummary to 'Allow' for the editing teacher role in that assignment (or sitewide if really necessary).

Where do you go to edit a rubric?

To edit a rubric click on an Assignment and then click Advanced Grading and 'Edit the current form definition.'

Can you copy rows of the rubric?

A 'duplicate' button allows you to quickly make a copy of a row:

How do you choose another rubric for an assignment?

From Administration>Assignment administration>Advanced grading access your rubric and delete it. The see #5 in Advanced grading methods

Why are total grades coming out strange?

If you are using a criterion without a 0-points level or with a level with negative points, then the rubric option 'When converting rubric score to points/scale assume that minimum number of points is 0' (new in 3.2) should be ticked to avoid unexpected grades.

• Advanced grading methods page for general concepts of advanced grading in Moodle
• School demo example of student view of rubric (Log in as username student /password moodle )
• School demo example of teacher view of rubric in student assignment (Log in as username teacher /password moodle )
• Rubric description at Wikipedia
• http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ - a free tool to help teachers create quality rubrics
• My Teacher is a Zombie – Marking by Rubric on Moodle Using an electronic rubric frees up the time to ...

Rubrics for Written Assignments

Introduction.

Most graduate courses require students to produce written work although these products differ in purpose and required parameters (e.g., format, length, or tone). Thus, a faculty member might be called on to evaluate short reflection papers, longer lab reports, or longer still term papers. In evaluating a written product, it is important to choose or develop a rubric in order to bring consistency, fairness, and clarity to the task. Creating Rubrics

An analytic rubric is a scoring guide used to evaluate performance, a product, or a project. It has three parts: 1) performance criteria; 2) rating scale; and 3) indicators. How to Develop a Rubric

Using a rubric to evaluate student written work is helpful for both faculty and students. For faculty, rubrics

• Reduce the time spent grading by allowing instructors to refer to a substantive description without writing long comments
• Help to identify strengths and weaknesses across an entire class and adjust instruction appropriately
• Help to ensure consistency across time and across graders
• Reduce the uncertainty that can accompany grading
• Discourage complaints about grades

Rubrics help students to

• Understand instructors’ expectations and standards
• Use instructor feedback to improve their performance
• Monitor and assess their own progress
• Recognize their strengths and weaknesses and direct their efforts accordingly

Benefitting from Rubrics

Developing a Rubric

Developing a rubric entails the following steps:

• ​​​​​​​List all the possible criteria students should demonstrate in the assignment.
• Decide which of those criteria are crucial. Ideally, the rubric will have three to five performance criteria.
• Criteria should be: unambiguous, clearly stated, measurable, precise, and distinct.
• Prioritize the criteria by relating them to the learning objectives for the unit and determining which skills are essential at competent or proficiency levels for the assignment.
• Basic, Developing, Accomplished, Exemplary
• Poor, Below Average, Average, Above Average, Excellent
• Below Expectations, Basic, Proficient, Outstanding
• Unsatisfactory, Basic, Competent, Distinguished
• Developing, Acceptable, Target
• Does Not Meet Expectations, Meets Expectations, Exceeds Expectations
• 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
• Low Mastery, Average Mastery, High Mastery
• Missing, unclear, clear, thorough
• Below expectations, basic, proficient, outstanding
• Never, rarely, sometimes, often, always
• Novice, apprentice, proficient, master ​​​​​​​
• Develop indicators of quality. Define the performance expected of the ideal assessment for each criterion. Begin with the highest level of the scale to define top quality performance and create indicators for all performance levels.
• Discuss the rubric with students so that they are clear on the expectations. Students can even help create the rubric.
• Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being measured?
• Does it cover important criteria for student performance?
• Does the top end of the rubric reflect excellence?
• Are the criteria and scales well-defined?
• Share the rubric with colleagues, students, and experts
• Test the rubric on samples of student work
• If multiple raters are being used, discuss common definitions, standards, and expectations for quality and practice using the rubric and comparing ratings to determine consistency in judgments across raters.

Rubrics for Written Work

There are, of course, many types of student papers, which differ in the learning outcomes they represent and the skills they are meant to develop. Ideally, an instructor will develop a unique rubric for each assignment, based on the intent of the assignment and the relevant learning objectives as well as the overall learning objectives for the course. When creating a rubric to evaluate a written assignment, an instructor should be able to answer the following questions:

• What will distinguish the best papers from the least effective?
• What skills is this task meant to teach that should be evaluated with the rubric?
• What is the paper supposed to accomplish, and what is the process that the writer should go through to accomplish those goals?
• How will I know if they have learned what the task calls for them to learn?

Designing and Using Rubrics

A review of a sample of rubrics for evaluating papers indicates that they vary in both the number of dimensions and the content of the dimensions included used; however, it is possible to extract several common dimensions for evaluation. These may include the following:

• ​​​​​​​Thoroughness/completeness
• Currency/recency

Organization/structure

• Thesis statement/argument
• Supporting evidence
•  Logic/coherence
• Cohesiveness

Presentation of ideas

• Integration/synthesis
•  Evaluation
•  Creativity/originality

Writing style

• Conciseness
• Punctuation
• Word choice
• Sentence structure
• Use of APA style in text
• Use of APA style in references

An instructor creating a rubric should consider these dimensions and determine which ones are pertinent to the purpose of the assignment being evaluated. It is also possible to adopt or adapt existing rubrics. One common source is the Association of American Colleges and Universities Value Rubrics: Written Communication.

AACU Value Rubrics: Written Communication

Other examples of specific rubrics include the following:

Examples of Rubrics for Research Papers

Research Paper Rubric Cornell College Cole Library

Rubric for Research Paper Kansas State Assessment Toolkit

Rubric for Research Paper University of Florida Center for Teaching Excellence

Writing Rubric for Psychology Middlebury College Academics

Rubrics for Essays

Grading Rubrics: Essays Brandeis University Writing Program

Analytic and Critical Thinking ​​​​​​​Mount Holyoke College Teaching & Learning Initiative

Argument Essay Grading Rubric Saint Paul College Academic Effectiveness and Innovation

Rubrics for Class Papers

College Level Writing Rubric Virginia Union University

Grading Rubric for Papers St. John’s University

Grading Rubric for Writing Assignment The American University of Rome

Rubrics for Reflection Papers

Reflection Writing Rubric Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence

Reflective Essay University of Florida Center for Teaching Excellence

Grading Rubric for Reflective Essay Mount Holyoke College Teaching & Learning Initiative

Creating Rubrics University of Texas/Austin Faculty Innovation Center

Evaluating Rubrics DePaul University Teaching Commons

Using Rubrics University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

Building A Rubric Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning

Designing & Using Rubrics University of Michigan Sweetland Center for Writing

Grading with Rubrics Western University Center for Teaching and Learning

Grading Rubrics Berkeley Graduate Division Graduate Student Instructor Teaching & Resource Center

University Center for Teaching and Learning

How to create and use rubrics for assessment in canvas.

• Quick Start
• Instructor Help
• Student Help

What is a Rubric?

Rubrics are used as grading criteria for students and can be added to assignments , quizzes, and graded discussions. If you are importing your rubrics from Blackboard, please note that the ratings will be flipped as Blackboard has rubrics criteria from lowest to highest points, left to right, whereas Canvas has rubrics criteria go from highest to lowest, left to right. Unfortunately there is no quick way to switch the criteria to go the other way, so you may need to edit the rubric manually to reflect the assessment accurately.

Notes: Rubrics cannot be edited once they have been added to more than one assignment. When you delete a rubric it will remove the rubric from all associated assignments in the course and delete any existing associated assessments.

How to Create a Rubric

1) Click on Rubrics in your Course Navigation Menu.

2) To add a rubric, click Add Rubric . To edit an existing rubric, click on it as it appears under Course Rubrics.

• Title – can be anything, but should usually be something associated with the assignment so you can easily find it later.
• Criteria – Criteria are the things that you will be determining your students’ grades on. For example, if the rubric were for an art project, criteria could include creativity, use of art materials, or relevancy to the prompt.

• Points – Rubric ratings default to 5 points. To adjust the total point value, enter the number of points in the Points field. The first rating (full marks) updates to the new total point value and the rest of the ratings adjust appropriately.
• +Criterion – Adds another criterium
• Find Outcome – Allows you to use a rubric that you have created before. If you want to use the criterion for scoring, click on the checkbox next to Use this criterion for scoring. If the checkbox is not selected, the point value will not be factored into the rubric and will not be displayed after the rubric is updated. Click the Import button and then click the OK button in the popup window to confirm.

4) Click Create Rubric .

How to Add a Rubric to an Assignment, Quizzes, and Discussion Boards

For the sake of this guide, the screenshots shown are using Assignments as the example. Please note that after Step 2, the process is the same for adding a rubric to assignments, quizzes, and discussions.

1) Click on Assignments, Quizzes, or Discussions in your Course menu.

2) Click on the name of the assignment, quiz, or discussion board to open it.

3) Click the Add Rubric button if adding to Assignments (left).

4) To choose an existing rubric, click on Find a Rubric .

In the first column, select the course or account. In the second column, locate and click the name of the rubric.

5) Click on Use This Rubric button.

6) To edit the rubric, click the pencil icon. To find a new rubric, click the magnifying glass icon. To remove the rubric from the current assignment, click the trash can icon.

Creating a New Rubric:

This is very similar to creating a rubric from scratch, however when attaching it to an assessment there are more options available.

• I’ll write free-form comments – If this option is selected, no ratings are used to assess the student and criterion values are assigned manually.
• Remove points from rubric – If this option is selected, no points are associated with the rubric, but students can still be rated using the rubric criterion.
• Don’t post Outcomes results – students will be able to see rubric and outcome results in the Grades and submission details pages, but results will not be posted to the Learning Mastery Gradebook.
• Use this rubric for assignment grading – if this option is selected, you can use the rubric for grading in SpeedGrader. ONLY appears for assignments and discussion boards – NOT quizzes.
• Hide score total for assessment results – students can still see the point values for each criterion, but the total score will not be shown at the bottom of the rubric. This option is only available if the rubric is not used for grading.

*Note: You can only reach these options if you create the assessment first and then add the rubric after.

Rubrics Help for Instructors

• How do I align an outcome with a rubric in a course?
• How do I add a rubric in a course?
• How do I add a rubric to a quiz?
• How do I manage rubrics in a course?
• How do I add a rubric to a graded discussion?
• How do I add a rubric to an assignment?

Rubrics Help for Students

• How do I view the rubric for a quiz?
• How do I view the rubric for my assignment?
• How do I view the rubric for my external tool assignment?
• How do I view rubric results for my assignment?
• How do I view the rubric for my graded discussion?
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