Design a rubric

Rubrics offer benefits to teaching staff, such as speeding up the marking process and assisting marking consistency, but they also have an instructional value for students (Popham, 1997). A well-designed rubric, underpinned by activities to engage students with its criteria, can be an effective tool for learning as well as marking. 

Poorly designed rubrics are, of course, less helpful and can even have a negative impact upon student learning. A range of issues may cause a rubric to be ineffectual for students or teaching staff: 

• there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that the rubric is clear to students 
• there are no opportunities for students interact with the rubric and make connections between it and their work prior to assessment
• criteria are too general and do not provide instructional value to students
• criteria are too long or complex for students or staff to use or understand
• too many criteria are included for the rubric to be useful to staff or students
• criteria are overly task-specific and only test a student’s ability to complete the assessment, rather than supporting development of the skills and knowledge intended by the learning task
• criteria are not connected to the intended subject learning outcomes 

Rubric types

There are generally two types of rubrics: analytical and holistic. 

• Analytical rubrics assess student work by component – specific details of performance levels are provided for each assessment criterion
• Holistic rubrics assess student work as a whole – general performance levels are outlined and the actions required to achieve each level are provided

Designing your rubric for the first time

Designing a rubric is always an iterative and recursive process. Like assessment designs, rubrics are often refined, reused and redesigned over time.  When designing a rubric for the first time, it may be useful to follow these general steps:

1. Review the learning objectives of the assessment task – what skills and abilities should the assessment evidence?  
2. Decide on the rubric type (analytical or holistic?)  
3. Look at other rubrics – is there an existing rubric similar to your requirements? 
4. Outline rubric components and levels, e.g. criteria to be used, levels, level descriptors.
5. Ask for feedback from peers or students to ensure the descriptors are clear, specific and align with the learning outcomes for the assessment task and the subject. For students, you may want to incorporate the rubric into class activities in the lead up to an assessment, to encourage them to engage with the criteria. 
6. Consider the format through which the rubric will be delivered – will you use a Canvas or Feedback Studio rubric, or a Word doc? This will inform how you implement the rubric in Canvas. 

Once you have designed your rubric, you can add your rubric to Canvas and use it to provide feedback in Canvas Speedgrader. Contact the LX.lab if you need help to implement or adapt your rubric for use in any of these tools.