Rubrics and Competencies work together in Brightspace and both have to be enabled. For you to use the Rubrics Go to Course Admin and select Tools.

Note: the below steps need only to be followed once for each course

• Scroll down to Competencies and click the slider box to enable the tool. A checkmark instead of a cross (x) should display.
• Scroll down further on the same page and enable Rubrics.

There are two types of rubrics:

1. Holistic. Holistic rubrics consist of single criteria rubrics (one-dimensional) used to assess participants’ overall achievement on an activity or item based on predefined achievement levels. The performance descriptions are usually written in paragraphs and usually in full sentences. Holistic rubrics may use a percentage or text only scoring method. Example of a holistic rubric for a Research Paper:
2. Analytical. Analytical rubrics are two-dimensional rubrics with multiple levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows. Analytical rubrics allow assessing a participants’ achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. Different weights (value) can be assigned to different criteria and include an overall achievement by totalling the criteria. Using points and custom points for analytic rubrics may use both text and points to assess performance. With custom points, each criterion may be worth a different number of points. For both points and custom points, an Overall Score is provided based on the total number of points achieved. The Overall Score determines if learners meet the criteria determined by instructors. The Total and the Overall Score of the rubric can manually be overridden. Analytical rubrics are usually written in a table form.Example of an analytical rubric for a Research Paper:

There are two ways to create a rubric:

1. From the Rubrics tool in the Course Admin page
2. From the Assignments tool, while setting up an assignment

We will discuss both options below.

From the Rubrics tool:

1. Open Course Admin in a course and select Rubrics.
2. The “Rubrics” page will open. Click on New Rubric.

From an existing Assignment folder:

1. In the Assignment folder, select Edit Assignment
2. In the Evaluation & Feedback tab, select Add Rubric and click on Create Rubric.

– For both workflows, the steps below are identical –

1. Setting up a Rubric
   • Choose a Name for the rubric and add a description
   • Set the “Rubric Status” to “Published“ if students are allowed to view the rubric. (Rubrics set to “Draft” or “Archived”, will not be able to be linked to an assignment).
   • Select Type  (see ‘Types of Rubrics’)
   • Select Scoring (if needed)
   • Set the number of Levels and assign a score (if used) to each level
   • Select the number of Criteria. Additional criteria can be added by selecting the ‘+ Add Criterion’ text
   • Add additional Critera Groups by clicking on Add Criteria Group below the table or click on the three dots in the top left corner of the rubric table to Copy- or Delete Criteria Groups

2. Under Options the Rubric Visibility for learners can be controlled, as well as Hide Scores from student’s view: (see How students see Rubric for more information)

3. Add a description for the Rubric if required. These notes will not be visible to students.
4. Choose whether the Rubric should be associated with a Competency in Brightspace to aid in assessing competencies.
   Once associated, the Rubric cannot be edited or deleted unless the association has been removed.
5. You can now start adding content to the rubric in the single page workflow document. You can also delete criteria and levels, and reorder them. See Levels and Criteria for more information.

6. All changes made to the rubrics are saved automatically. Click Close when the rubric is finalized.

To preview the created rubric, you can go to Preview in the drop-down menu next to the rubric you would like to preview. Here, you will be able to see the rubric, but also to download or print it. This can be done by clicking on the Print Rubric button.

Rubrics can be associated with activities such as Assignments, Discussions or to a Grade Item.

To associate a Rubric with an activity, do the following steps:

For Assignments:

1. Go to Assignments.
2. Click the drop-down arrow and select Edit Assignment.
3. Click Add Rubric in the Evaluation & Feedback tab.
4. Select the Rubric you want to use.
5. Click Save when you are done.

For Discussions:

1. Go to Discussions.
2. Click the drop-down arrow and select ‘Edit topic’ for Discussions.
3. Select the Assessment tab.
4. Click Add Rubric and add the Rubric you want to use.
5. Click Save when you are done.

In the exception of grading offline or observational activities, it is possible to associate a Rubric to a Grade Item. To do so:

1. Go to Grades and select Enter grades.
2. Edit a Grade Item or create a new one.
3. Add a Rubric.
4. Save and Close.

Once again, do not associate Rubrics directly to Grade Items for activities like Assignments and Discussions.

If you already created a Rubric and cannot click the link to attach your pre-existing rubric to your course, then it’s because the “Competencies” tool is inactive. Follow the steps below to enable it:

1. Go to the Course Admin and then Tools and check the tool.
2. Within the properties of your Rubric make sure the option “Allow new associations in” is checked for Competencies. This option can be found in the Rubric Edit Properties menu under “Advanced Availability”, at the bottom of the page.

Once you have selected the Competencies, you’ll be able to click Add rubric in the assignment settings via Edit Assignment.

1. Click Add Rubric and select which rubric you would like to add to the assignment.
2.  Click Save when you are done.

Once the rubric has been created and is now linked to an assignment, you can then grade the students based on the rubric.

1. Click on Assignments and select View Submissions.
2. Select the student whose submission you would like to grade.
3. After opening the submission, you should see something like this: You see that your rubric is attached and at the moment doesn’t have a checkmarknext to it, like this one has:The checked rubric icon displays only when a rubric has been fully scored by the instructor. The unchecked rubric icon displays when a rubric is unscored, or partially scored, to provide instructors and learners with more visual information about the status of the rubric.
4. Click on the rubric to start grading the assignment using the rubric. This will opens an inline assessment on the right of the screen. You can easily grade by hovering over the criteria and selecting the right box. When you have assessed the student click Publish. If you want to finish your assessment later, you can Save Draft.
   
5. You can also open the rubric in a new window by clicking on the icon in the top right corner.
   
6. According to your rubric criteria, you can assess the student submission.
7. Once you have given your feedback, click Close. If you have not filled in all criteria, you can always reopen the rubric.
8. You will then see there is a checked mark next to your rubric indicating that it has been successfully filled along with the level achieved and points obtained. Also, the grade will be automatically entered.
9. Retract Feedback option enables instructors to remove published feedback from the learners’ view for changes to the Total Score. The Overall Score and Overall Feedback portions of the rubric can be edited without retraction.

This section elaborates on the implications each of the options in step 3 of the section ‘create your own rubrics’

• If you selected the rubric to be hidden for students, they will not be able to see the rubric anywhere.
• If you selected the rubric to be hidden for students and selected the option ‘include rubric feedback in overall feedback’, the feedback provided on hidden rubrics will be transferred back to general feedback. The feedback from a rubric with this option enabled will appear to the student as part of the general feedback on the activity.
• If you allow students to see the rubric, students can see their full completed rubric (including the selected levels and instructor feedback) in the following places:
  • Gradebook
  • Discussions and Assignment
  • User Progress, including Grades tab
  • Content tool (classic Content experience) where activity is included (Assessment section)