Create a Grading Rubric

Create a Rubric:

  1. On the navbar, click More Tools.

  2. From the drop-list, choose Rubrics.

  3. On the Rubrics page, click New Rubric.

  4. In the Properties tab, enter your rubric details (see more information below).

  5. Click Save.

  6. Do one of the following:

    • If you created an analytic rubric, click the Levels and Criteria tab, and edit your criteria and levels.

    • If you created a holistic rubric, click the Levels tab, and edit your levels.


About Rubric Details:

Name: A unique name for the rubric, for example, Discussion Post Rubric.

Rubric Status: The availability of the rubric:

  • Draft: The initial status of a rubric. Draft rubrics are not yet complete and cannot be attached to assignments or discussions.

  • Published: Rubric is available to be attached to assignments or discussions. OTTL Note: we recommend choosing this option if you plan to use the rubric immediately after creation.

  • 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 description of the rubric. 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.

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 totaling the criteria. With analytic rubrics, levels of achievement display in columns and your assessment criteria display in rows. Analytic rubrics may use a points, custom points, or text only scoring method. 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.

  • 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.

Initial # of Levels: The number of achievement levels you want an analytic rubric to have. By default, four levels display.

Initial # of Criteria: The number of criteria you want to break your evaluation down for an analytic rubric. By default, three criteria display.

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:

  • Text Only: Performance levels indicated by text. For example, three performance levels for a rubric can be Poor, Good, and Excellent.

  • Points: 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: A holistic rubric using Percentages can be automatically assessed based on the score of its associated item, for example, a Grade item.