Rubrics

1. Name: A unique name for the rubric, for example, Critical Evaluation.

2. Rubric Status: The availability of the rubric:

• Draft: The initial status of a rubric. Draft rubrics are not yet available for new associations.
• Published: Associations can be made with published rubrics. Once a rubric has an association, you cannot change the rubric's name, description, levels, and criteria.
• Archived: Archived rubrics do not appear in default search results and are not available for new associations. Existing associations with archived rubrics remain functional.
• Note: Users with permission to change a rubric's status can do so at any time.

Description: A detailed description of the rubric. Note that this description is not shown to learners and is only visible to instructors. For example, Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.

3. Rubric Type: The type of rubric:

• Analytic: Two-dimensional rubrics with levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows. Allows you to assess participants' achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. You can assign different weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totalling the criteria. With analytic rubrics, levels of achievement display in columns and your assessment criteria display in rows. Analytic rubrics may use points, customs points, or text-only scoring methods. Points and custom points analytic rubrics may use both text and points to assess performance; with custom points, each criterion may be worth a different number of points. For both points and custom points, an Overall Score is provided based on the total number of points achieved. The Overall Score determines if learners meet the criteria determined by instructors. You can manually override the Total and the Overall Score of the rubric.
   
• Weighted rubrics: A form of Analytic rubric used to emphasize the importance of certain criteria over others. If a criterion is weighted higher than the rest, this signifies that it is more important for the participants' understanding than the other criteria. This allows you to assess participants' achievements based on whether or not the participants achieved the core factors of the assessment, as opposed to achieving all factors of the assessment equally. Weighted rubrics are created based on Analytic rubrics, but use custom points that allow you to input your own weights for the criteria. 
   
• Holistic: Single criterion rubrics (one-dimensional) used to assess participants' overall achievement on an activity or item based on predefined achievement levels. Holistic rubrics may use a percentage or text-only scoring method.

The following videos provide step-by-step instructions for how to create Analytic, Weighted, and Holistic rubrics:

4. Scoring Method: used to assess rubrics with textual performance levels such as Excellent, or with text and numeric score such as Excellent (90 points). There are several ways to score a rubric:

• No Score: Performance levels indicated by the text. For example, three performance levels for a rubric can be Poor, Good, and Excellent.
• Points: This scoring method is only available to analytic rubrics. Performance levels indicated by points. For example, three performance levels for a rubric can be Poor (0 points), Good (75 points), and Excellent (125 points).
• Custom Points: This scoring method is only available to analytic rubrics. The Custom Points scoring method is similar to the Points scoring method, but you can customize the points given for each criterion. For example, if performance levels are Poor, Good, and Excellent, then the criterion Spelling and Grammar can be worth 0 points, 10 points, and 20 points for each level, and the criterion Expression can be worth 0 points, 30 points, and 60 points, making it worth three times the points of Spelling and Grammar.
• Percentages: This scoring method is only available to holistic rubrics. A holistic rubric using Percentages can be automatically assessed based on the score of its associated item, for example, a Grade item.

Rubric Visibility: The visibility of the rubric. Hiding a rubric is useful for preventing learners from using the preview rubric as an answer key for an activity. For more information, see Visibility of rubrics.

Hide Scores: Hide scores from learner view.

Note the following:

• The top of the page displays the rubric type and scoring method. You can change the type and scoring method at any time; however, changing your rubric from analytic to holistic will cause all but the first row of your rubric to be deleted.
• As you add or edit rubric information, your changes are automatically saved.
• You can re-order criteria using drag and drop or using your keyboard.
• A rubric description is what is required to achieve the level for each criterion. Achievement level descriptions help evaluators determine which level best reflects a user's achievement. The more detailed your descriptions are, the more consistent evaluations will be.
• You can add bolding, italics, and lists to rubric descriptions. You can also use Insert Stuff to add third-party content, for example, images. Rubric descriptions do not support replace strings and additional HTML code.
• You can add predefined feedback that appears to users who achieve a specific level, and it is an easy way to communicate a rubric's evaluation methodology. Predefined feedback does not support HTML.
• If you are creating a holistic rubric that uses a percentage scoring method, enter a start range. The start range for your lowest achievement level is automatically set to 0%. The start range for other levels should be the lowest percentage acceptable for the level. The highest percentage is determined by the start range for the level above.

You can control rubric visibility for students. This is useful for preventing students from using preview rubrics as answer keys for activities. For example, you can describe assessment expectations in assignment instructions, hiding the associated preview rubric. Once the assignment is graded, you release the graded rubric as part of the student's assessment details.

Instructors can set the visibility of individual rubrics. Creating or editing a rubric includes the following options: 

• Rubric is visible to students
• Rubric is hidden from students
• Include rubric feedback in overall feedback
• Rubric is hidden from students until feedback is published

To indicate rubric visibility to instructors, rubrics that are hidden until feedback is published or rubrics that are never visible display an indicator in the Rubrics section of the associated activity. Visible rubrics do not display an indicator.

Note the following:

• The visibility status of a rubric can only be changed at the rubric level, not at the activity level. For example, you cannot change the visibility of a rubric from an assignment.
• Visibility is a property of a rubric and not an individual assessment. Once rubric feedback is published to the learner, they can see the rubric feedback and rubric definition on any page where the rubric is used.
• For individual and group assignments, an instructor assesses the rubric in the assignment assessment workflow. Upon publishing or updating the assessment, the rubric feedback is considered published. To make changes after publishing rubric feedback, you can edit your feedback while it remains published (allowing learners to view any updates as you make them), or you can retract the published feedback to remove the rubric from the learner's view and then publish it again.
• For individual and group discussions, an instructor assesses the rubric in the assess topic workflow. Upon saving the assessment, the rubric feedback is considered published.
• For surveys, an instructor assesses the rubric in the survey assessment workflow (Completion Summary in the classic Content tool). Upon saving the assessment, the rubric feedback is considered published.

Copy a Rubric

Copying a rubric creates a new rubric based on an existing rubric in the same org unit. The new rubric has the same properties, levels and criteria, and is shared with the same org units as the original rubric.

On the Rubrics page, click Copy from the drop-down menu of the rubric you want to copy.

Delete a Rubric

On the Rubrics page, Delete from the drop-down menu of the rubric you want to delete.

If you can't delete a rubric, go to the associated assignment, discussion, or survey and remove the rubric by clicking the x next to the rubric name to remove it.

When you create an association for a rubric with an assignment folder, discussion topic etc., you cannot edit or delete the rubric. To make changes after associating it with a tool, you should change the rubric’s status to Draft, then copy the rubric and make your changes to the new copy.  You can then Archive the original rubric.

The following video provides step-by-step instructions to create a rubric, add Levels/Criteria, and rearranging Levels/Criteria within a rubric: 

Add Rubric Levels or Criteria

1. Click the + button to add an additional level to the rubric.
2. Click the + Add Criterion to add an additional criteria to the rubric.
3. Click the + Add Criteria Group button to create a rubric that you can assign different weights (value) to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totalling the criteria.

Delete Rubric Levels or Criteria

1. To delete a level click the Garbage Can image under the level you wish to remove.
2. To delete a criterion click the Garbage Can image on the right-hand side of the page. 

Reorder Rubric Levels or Criteria

1. To change the direction of the level click the Reverse Level Order button.
2. You can re-order the criterion by using drag and drop or using your keyboard.

In order to make Rubrics more accessible for students and instructors to view without navigating directly to Rubrics, instructors can add a link to a Rubric through the Quicklinks menu.  

1. In Content, create a new module.
2. Click Upload/Create, and select Create a File from the drop-down menu.
3. Click Insert Quicklink.
4. In the Insert Quicklink menu, select Rubrics.
5. In Rubrics, select the desired rubric, and click the pencil to edit the options for the rubric and choose to open in a new window. Note that Manage Rubrics is accessible in this menu.
6. Click Publish.

Note: only rubrics with Visible to all Users selected can be quicklinked.

The following video provides a guide for how to attach a rubric to an assignment and other activities on onQ:

To attach a rubric to an Assignment, you must first create a rubric and set its Status to Published.

1. On the navbar, select Assignments from the Assessments tab.
2. Select Edit Assignment from the drop-down arrow next to the folder you want to attach a rubric to.
3. In the Properties tab, click Add Rubric.
4. Select the check box for the rubric you want to attach to the assignment. Click Add Selected.
5. Click Save and Close.

The following video provides a guide for how to attach a rubric to a discussion topic:

To attach a rubric to a Discussion Topic, you must first create a rubric and set its Status to Published.

1. On the navbar, select Discussions from the Communications tab.
2. Click Edit Topic from the drop-down arrow next to the topic you want to attach a rubric to.
3. In the Assessments tab, click Add Rubric.
4. Select the check box for the rubric you want to attach to the discussion topic. Click Add Selected.
5. Click Save and Close.

The following video shows an example of how to grade assignments using a rubric: 

Note: onQ does not include a "Quick Eval" feature as shown in the video but the same grading process can be followed through the Grades tab or from the Assignments tool when grading submissions. 

Grading can be done from the Assignments tool, or through Grades – depending on your workflow preference. 

1. On the navbar, select Assignments from the Assessments tab.
2. Select the name of the submission folder that contains the files you want to grade.
3. A page that lists all of the files submitted by students will open.
4. Click on the name of the file that you want to grade. A page that displays the document and the grading interface will open.
5. Click the name of the rubric associated with the submission folder; it is listed on the right side of the page, under the Evaluation heading.
6. The rubric will appear in a new window.
7. Click the box for the level the student achieved for each criterion on your rubric. As you select scores for the criteria, the rubric will automatically update the overall score.
8. Click Add Feedback in the criteria column to enter qualitative feedback.
9. The rubric will automatically save as you enter information. You can see the current save status at the top of the window.
10. Click Publish to send the score, grade, feedback, and completed rubric in the submission folder to the student.

Students can now see the completed rubric in Assignments, and the Assignment has an associated grade, students can view it in Gradebook.

Grading can be done from the Discussions tool, or through Grades – depending on your workflow preference. 

Before you can grade a discussion board post with a rubric, you must have a grade item associated with the topic.
For information on how to set up a grade item, visit our guide here.

1. On the navbar, select Discussions from the Communications tab.
2. Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the name of the discussion topic that contains the posts you want to grade.
3. Select Assess Topic. For each student, click Topic Score underneath their name. The rubric will show in a new window and the student's posts will show at the bottom of the window.
4. Click the box for the level the student achieved for each criterion on your rubric. As you select scores for the criteria, the rubric will automatically update the overall score.
5. Click Add Feedback in the criteria column to enter qualitative feedback.
6. Click Publish to send the score, grade, feedback, and completed rubric in the submission folder to the student. Or click Save Draft to save your work and publish it later.

Students can now see the completed rubric in Discussions and the Content tool, where a discussion is included. If a discussion has an associated grade, students can view it in Gradebook.