What is a Rubric?

The Competencies and Rubrics Pop-up Window provides three options to define an assignment's competencies and/or rubric criteria and performance levels:

No Rubric - to assign an assignment's score equally to one or more selected competencies. The No Rubric option allows you to attach competencies to an assignment. The assignment is then scored in the gradebook, and each attached competency receives the full assignment score.

Simple Rubric - to score an assignment based on one or more competency scores with each competency's score contributing to the assignment score. Assignments using a Simple Rubric are scored with the Simple Rubric Score Entry page. There are two options for specifying how the competency scores contribute to the assignment's score: Average and Sum. When Average is selected, all competencies contribute equally to the student's assignment score. You select the Assignment Points value when defining the rubric, and each competency score is averaged to calculate the student's score for the assignment. When Sum is selected, you determine the weight of each competency when defining the rubric (by assigning a maximum points value for each competency), and the student's assignment score is the sum of their competency scores.

Full Rubric - to score an assignment based on multiple criteria and performance levels. You can also associate a competency or multiple competencies with a rubric's criterion. Similar to the Simple Rubric, Full Rubrics allow you to average the scores of all criteria scores (with each criterion having equal weight), or you can assign weights to each criterion with the assignment score being the sum of the criteria scores. The setup for the Average and Sum options is described at the end of this topic.

This set of criteria, which can be associated with standards and competencies for the stated learning objectives, is used to assess each student's performance on assignment. You can use a Full Rubric to help students and parents understand the expectations for each objective. Full Rubrics also help you to objectively score student assignments; they are scored on the Full Rubric Score Entry page. For field descriptions of the Competencies and Rubrics pop-up Window, refer to the Competencies and Rubrics Pop-up Window topic.

The two dimensions of a Full Rubric are criteria and performance levels. The criteria are the specific objectives you want to evaluate for the assignment. The performance levels represent the rating scale for student performance. The following example illustrates a Full Rubric for a presentation project.

Criteria	Performance Levels
Research Questions	0 - 5 Wrote fewer than 5 questions or wrote many questions that did not apply for the topic.	6 - 8 Wrote at least 5 clear questions that related to the topic.	9 - 10 Wrote at least 10 clear and creative questions that related to the topic.
Source Selections	0 - 1 Selected fewer than 3 sources from one format.	2 - 4 Selected 5 or more sources from at least two different formats.	5 Selected 10 or more sources from at least three different formats.
Preparation for Presentation	0 - 1 Did not outline presentation.	2 - 4 Wrote a brief outline for the presentation.	5 Wrote a detailed outline for the presentation and included follow-up question and answer notes.
Presentation	0 - 10 Presentation was disorganized and not clear.	11 - 20 Most of the presentation was organized and well-structured.	21 - 25 Entire presentation was organized and well-structured.
Bibliography	0 - 1 Did not provide a bibliography.	2 - 4 Provided a bibliography and most sources were documented in the correct format.	5 Provided a bibliography where all sources were documented correctly.

Criteria

Performance Levels

Incomplete

Proficient

Advanced

Research Questions

0 - 5

Wrote fewer than 5 questions or wrote many questions that did not apply for the topic.

6 - 8

Wrote at least 5 clear questions that related to the topic.

9 - 10

Wrote at least 10 clear and creative questions that related to the topic.

Source Selections

0 - 1

Selected fewer than 3 sources from one format.

2 - 4

Selected 5 or more sources from at least two different formats.

Selected 10 or more sources from at least three different formats.

Preparation for Presentation

0 - 1

Did not outline presentation.

2 - 4

Wrote a brief outline for the presentation.

Wrote a detailed outline for the presentation and included follow-up question and answer notes.

Presentation

0 - 10

Presentation was disorganized and not clear.

11 - 20

Most of the presentation was organized and well-structured.

21 - 25

Entire presentation was organized and well-structured.

Bibliography

0 - 1

Did not provide a bibliography.

2 - 4

Provided a bibliography and most sources were documented in the correct format.

Provided a bibliography where all sources were documented correctly.

The Competencies and Rubrics Pop-up Window allows you to define the number of criteria and performance levels. You can define the labels and descriptions for the rubric. You can also define the score threshold for performance levels by entering the high score for each level. For example, for Research Questions, Incomplete would have a high score of 5, Proficient would have a high score of 8, and Advanced would have a high score of 10. If competencies are attached, each competency receives the score of the criterion that it is attached to.

When defining a Full Rubric, you must select one of two options for the Assignment Points value: Average or Sum. When Sum is selected, you enter the Score value for each Performance Level, and the Assignment Points value is the sum of the criteria scores for the highest performance level. When you select Average, enter the value for Assignment Points at the bottom of the grid, and the pop-up fills in the grid with each criterion receiving the Assignment Points value as its highest Performance Level Score. The lower performance level scores increase in equal increments beginning with (Assignment Points)/(number of Performance Levels), but you can change these values to meet your needs.

Gradebook Setup Page

Defining a Rubric

Competencies and Rubrics Page