Best Practices for Rubrics
The Rubrics tool
Note that the Rubrics tool on the left menu is hidden and locked to students by default. Changing any settings to the tool (e.g. unhiding it or unlocking it) results in Rubrics instability and potential loss of data.
Rubrics can be a tool to assist with and help with consistency in grading and providing feedback for students, but there are some pedagogical and technical issues to keep in mind when creating and using Rubrics.
- Rubrics can be enabled in the Assignments, Tests and Quizzes (for short answer and essay questions), and the Gradebook tool. If you wish to attach a Rubric to a Forum, connect the Rubric to a Gradebook item and connect the Gradebook item to the Forum see page XXXXXXXX. For rubrics in Lessons please refer to this page:XXXXXXXXX
- Be aware that if you want to be able to "Adjust marks" in the Rubric, meaning that you would choose a grade in between one rating and the next (e.g. if your ratings are 0, 1, 2, 3 and you want to award 2.5) then you must select that option when attaching the Rubric to the assessment.
- If an assessment or assignment uses a rubric, the assessment is marked with that rubric, meaning that grades will automatically be populated in the grade field when rating selections are made within the rubric. See also Grade a forum topic using a rubric or Grade an assignment using a rubric.
- Similarly, if you have attached a Rubric you must select at least one rating box in order for it to save as a Rubric. Only having one rating box per criterion (see example below) possible but not the way the tool was originally designed and can lead to confusion. If you are interested in how structuring a single rating rubric might work with Sakai's Rubrics please contact edtech@brocku.ca.
- When choosing to share a rubric, note that it is shared across the university and cannot be modified once it is shared.
- Rubrics will not be released to students until grades are released to students:
Grading and Feedback options for an assessment (i.e. test or quiz)
Grade a forum topic using a rubric
- Note that grades in Gradebook need to be released to be visible to students in the Gradebook tool.
>> Special Permissions need to be set in Assignments so that a TA can grade using rubrics.
Visit the Assignments tool
Select the Assignments tool from the Tools Menu in your site.
Click the Permissions option
Ensure that "Submit to Assignment(s) is selected in the TA column.
More questions about the Rubrics tool?
This page is adapted from an equivalent Sakai Community help article.
The original Sakai Community help article, unedited, is available at https://sakai.screenstepslive.com/s/sakai_help
