Rubrics

Rubrics can be a powerful educational tool for sharing expectations with students, for grading students' work, and for providing specific feedback to students. When rubrics (or portions of rubrics) are designed around student learning outcomes, the completed rubrics can be used to assess how well students have acquired the skills and knowledge described in the learning outcomes.

Worth reading: Teaching Resource Center Newsletter: "Grading with Rubrics"

iRubric – Rubric tool in Collab Gradebook

iRubric is a comprehensive tool for developing, sharing, and using rubrics for grading and assessment. It is available through Collab Gradebook. Look for this checkerboard symbol on the Gradebook Items page:

iRubric is easy to learn and use. You can create your own rubrics or import rubrics from a public gallery of rubrics and then modify them to suit your purposes. Once you have readied your rubric, you can use iRubric to grade student work and provide feedback to students within Collab. The grading feature is integrated into Gradebook. At your discretion, students may have access to the rubric before grading as an opportunity to understand the criteria they need to meet and after grading when they can view their scores as well as your specific feedback regarding their work. Moreover, iRubric offers a suite of report options so that you can design reports for your individual courses, across courses or across terms.

Learn to use iRubric:

We have compiled a "Quick Start Guide" to help you access and begin to use iRubric.

The iRubric vendor, Reazon Systems, offers "How-to Videos" for creating and organizing rubrics, applying rubrics in grading, and creating reports.

We are available for training and consultation. Please feel free to contact Lois Myers at IRA.

Adopt a Rubric (or adopt and revise)

You may find it useful to begin with a pre-existing rubric and customize it to suit your purposes. The following links provide sample rubrics for a variety of learning outcomes.

VALUE Rubrics

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) developed and made available 16 rubrics that address essential learning outcomes. Individuals at AAC&U member institutions are welcome to reproduce the VALUE rubrics for use in the classroom and in intra-institutional publications. In publications, please credit the AAC&U Value Project, which developed and provides these rubrics.

Intellectual and Practical Skills

• Inquiry and Analysis
• Critical Thinking
• Creative Thinking
• Written Communication
• Oral Communication
• Reading
• Quantitative literacy
• Information literacy
• Teamwork
• Problem Solving

Personal and Social Responsibility

• Civic Knowledge and Engagement – local and global
• Intercultural Knowledge and Competence
• Global Learning
• Ethical Reasoning
• Foundations and Skills for Lifelong Learning

Integrative and Applied Learning

• Integrative and Applied Learning

About the VALUE rubrics: These rubrics were developed by teams of faculty experts representing colleges and universities across the United States through a process that examined many existing campus rubrics and related documents for each learning outcome and incorporated additional feedback from faculty. The rubrics articulate fundamental criteria for each learning outcome, with performance descriptors demonstrating progressively more sophisticated levels of attainment. The rubrics are intended for institutional-level use in evaluating and discussing student learning. The core expectations articulated in the rubrics can and should be translated into the language of individual campuses, disciplines, and even courses. The utility of the VALUE rubrics is to position learning at all undergraduate levels within a basic framework of expectations such that evidence of learning can be shared nationally through a common dialog and understanding of student success.

Featured UVA Rubrics

The following seven rubrics were created by Emily Scida, Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, University of Virginia. They focus on five areas of student learning: composition (three levels: 1000, 2000 and 3000); cross-cultural composition; oral exam; presentation; and class participation.

• Composition - 1000 Level (University of Virginia)
• Composition - 2000 Level (University of Virginia)
• Composition - 3000 Level (University of Virginia)
• Cross-Cultural Composition (University of Virginia)
• Oral Examination (University of Virginia)
• Presentation (University of Virginia)
• Participation (University of Virginia)

The Undergraduate Research Assessment Committee developed this rubric for assessing student research projects or papers.

• Undergraduate Research (University of Virginia)

Other Examples of Rubrics

General Education

• Action Project (Miami University)
• Capstone Project (University of Virginia, work in progress)
• Critical Thinking and Writing (Miami University)
• Information Literacy (McKendree College)
• Online Discussion (Boise State University)
• Team Projects (University of Virginia)
• Writing (CLAQWA University of South Florida)

Arts and Humanities

• Book Review (Miami University)
• Classics (Miami University)
• Drama (Miami University)
• English (Miami University)
• Humanities and the Arts (Minnesota State)
• Narrative Essay (Maricopa)
• Philosophy and Religion (Buena Vista)
• Theatre Appreciation (Miami University)

Interdisciplinary

• Liberal Studies Seminar (BIS - University of Virginia, work in progress)

Languages

• Critical Thinking - Linguistics (Miami University)

Sciences

• Science Lab (National Health Lab)

Social Sciences

• Critical Thinking - Anthropology (Miami University)