Rubrics are used to evaluate an activity or item based on a predefined set of criteria. They help ensure that activities and items are evaluated fairly and consistently.

Rubrics basics

You can create rubrics at the organization, department or unit level. Rubrics are not automatically shared with all child org units below the org unit in which they were created. You must explicitly share them if you want them available to child org units. Rubrics created at the unit level cannot be shared with other units (you can create a rubric in a unit template and reuse it in unit offerings for that unit template). If you don't want to share a rubric with all child org units, you can restrict who it is shared with on the New Rubric or Edit Rubric pages.
Examples:

• Your school district has a standard rubric for evaluating students' performance. The rubric assesses performance based on four criteria: Knowledge and Understanding; Critical Thinking; Communication; and Application of Knowledge. Students may achieve one of four levels for each criterion: Needs Remediation; Below Expectations; Meets Expectations; and Exceeds Expectations. The rubric clearly describes the characteristics of each level for each criterion.

Where can you use a rubric?

You can attach a rubric to any of the following unit tools or activities:

• Discussion topics (Individual and Group)
• Assignments (Individual and Group)
• Grade items
• Surveys

Types of rubrics

There are two types of rubrics available for use:

• Holistic Rubrics - 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.
• Analytic Rubrics -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.

Controlling visibility of rubrics

You can control rubric visibility for learners. This is useful for preventing learners 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 learner's assessment details.
Rubric visibility is controlled in two ways:

• Administrators can set the default visibility of new rubrics at the org unit level.
• Instructors can set the visibility of individual rubrics. Creating or editing a rubric includes the following options: Rubric is always visible to learners, Rubric is hidden until feedback published, and Rubric is never visible to learners.

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.

Displaying graded rubric feedback in Gradebook

The Grades tool allows you and your learners to see the rubric associated with an activity from Gradebook. For example, if a rubric is attached to a discussion, and you evaluate the rubric in Discussions, the results of the rubric are visible to the learner from the associated grade.
You can assess discussions or assignments from the corresponding tool, and the completed rubric displays in its entirety in the Gradebook (if the activity has a linked grade).
TAFE Queensland recommends the following best practices:

• If you previously associated a copy of a rubric directly with a grade, and filled out (or copied) your assessment of the rubric in the Grades tool, you should follow this new workflow: rubrics should only be associated with the activity (not the grade) and assessed in the activity (discussion or assignment). The rubric automatically displays in Gradebook.
• If you previously did not use rubrics in Discussions due to the inability to display rubric feedback to learners, you can now start using rubrics in Discussions. Learners can now see the completed rubric in Discussions, as well as in the Content tool, where a discussion is included. If a discussion has an associated grade, learners can view it in Gradebook.
• You should only associate a rubric with the activity being assessed. With this change, grade items that have rubrics directly associated with them can no longer be linked to activities. However, activities with associated rubrics can be linked to grade items.
• Grade items that are considered independent and intended for offline grade or observational activities can continue to use rubrics. However, they cannot be associated with activities.