Rubrics

Using Rubrics

You should add a rubric to each assignment prior to assigning it to students.

Rubrics can reduce the time it takes you to grade assignments, but what's more, rubrics provide students with clear expectations on how to successfully complete an assignment.

Rubric criteria should give learners the information they need to understand how a grade on an assignment or activity is calculated.

If your rubric utilizes graded criteria, ensure the total point value available in the rubric adds up to the same point value the assignment is worth.

Writing Rubrics

Rubrics should use language that is clear to students, free from abbreviations, jargon, and technical language that could be confusing to students. Text should clearly articulate what the expectations are for each performance level for a given criterion, and should provide meaningful feedback to students.

Performance Levels

Performance levels should not emphasize the negative at lower performance levels (avoid words such as "poor"). Performance level labels should be descriptive, not discouraging, and should focus on students' ability to improve.

Examples of performance levels you could use are:

• Accomplished | Proficient | Developing | Novice | No Marks

• Exemplary | Accomplished | Developing | Beginning

• Sophisticated | Competent | Partly Competent | Not Yet Competent

Guides to Creating Rubrics

• Best Practices for Designing Effective Rubrics (ASU)

• Canvas Guide: How do I add a rubric in a course?

• Canvas Guide: How do I add a rubric to an assignment?

• Canvas Guide: How do I use a rubric to grade submissions in SpeedGrader?

Public Rubrics

Departmental Rubrics

Your Dean, or other Canvas account administrators, can add rubrics to your departmental sub-account that can be accessed by anyone teaching a course in your department. This is an effective way to share common rubrics. For more information or help setting up departmental rubrics, please contact the TLC team.

School Rubrics

TLC has made many rubrics available to the whole school:

• NCSSM Rubric for Academic Writing

• Rubric for Discussion Forums

• Rubric for ePortfolios

• Lab Report Rubric

• Scientific Research Rubric

• Capstone or Major Project Rubric

• Class Participation Rubric

• Computer Programming Grading Rubric

• Response to Reading / Short paper Rubric

• and many more ...

Finding and Adding NCSSM Rubrics to Assignments

To use these rubrics as-is or edit them for your assignments, when adding a rubric to an assignment:

1. Choose to "Find a Rubric"

2. In the list of courses, find "NC School of Science and Math"

3. Choose the rubric you wish to use.

• Guide to finding and adding NCSSM rubrics to your assignments.