In VIULearn, you can make and use rubrics in order to create a set of criteria for grading assignments. Rubrics have the potential to improve student learning by giving early access to expectations so that students can self-assess their learning. Rubrics can also help prevent confusion and disputes about the grading of assignments by providing a standard set of expectations for all learners within the course.
Before creating a rubric within VIULearn, we recommend having the formatting, levels, and criterion of your rubric already drafted out on a piece of paper or a separate program. To get started with creating a rubric, you can find some resources regarding Designing and Using Rubrics on our website.
If you would like assistance creating the structure of your rubric, please contact the Centre For Innovation and Excellence in Learning at learnsupport@viu.ca and we would be happy to book you a consult to help you with creating a rubric.
Rubric Terms & Definitions
To help you make your rubric within VIULearn, here are some of the key terms used by the Rubric tool in VIULearn.
Levels: Levels in a rubric are used to communicate the levels of achievement a student may reach on the Criterion (For example: poor, fair, good, excellent).
Criterion: Criterion in a rubric are used to identify the key areas that the assignment will be evaluated on. For example, for an essay assignment, the Criterion may include evaluation on the introduction, conclusion, citations, and grammar/spelling.
Overall Score: In an Analytic Rubric, students will achieve an overall achievement level based on the accumulative score that they have achieved on the rubric. If the No Score Scoring setting is enabled, you will be able to manually select the final level students' have achieved. Otherwise, the Overall Score level will be automatically calculated and assigned based on the student's accumulative score on the rubric.
In the course homepage, select Faculty Tools in the course navigation bar. From the drop-down menu, select Course Admin.
Under the Assessment category, select Rubrics.
Click the blue New Rubric button.
In the Name input field, give your new rubric a name.
Choose your preferred Rubric Type:
Analytic: Analytic rubrics allow you to insert multiple assessment criteria (Thesis Statement/Main Idea, Grammar and Errors, etc) and will allow you to insert levels that students have achieved on those assessment criteria (Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, etc.). Students will then be given an overall score and/or an overall level of achievement based on their performance on those assessment criteria.
Holistic: Holistic rubrics contain only one assessment criteria and are used to assess students' overall achievement on the assignment.
Choose your preferred Scoring method:
No Score (Analytic & Holistic): With this setting, the rubric will not assign a score to each level and no overall score will be assigned to the rubric. This setting is best used for rubrics that are not being used to provide a numerical grade on an assignment.
Points (Analytic): With this setting, a score will be assigned to every criterion within the rubric. This setting is best used when all criterion within the rubric will be worth the same amount of points.
Custom Points (Analytic): With this setting, each level can be customized to assign a particular score to each individual Criterion within a rubric. This setting is best used when you wish for a particular criterion to be worth more or less then the other criterion in the rubric.
Percentage (Holistic): With this setting, a percentage will be assigned to each level within the rubric. Students will need to achieve that percentage or higher on the assignment in order to achieve that level in the rubric.
Begin creating your rubric by typing into the input fields provided.
If you are creating an Analytic rubric, your rubric will have 4 achievement levels and 3 criterion by default. For a Holistic rubric, your rubric will have 4 achievement levels by default.
If you wish to have more levels, select the white plus button that is located on either side of the first or last level. If you would like to add a new level to the left side of the rubric, click the left plus button. If you would like to add a new level to the right side of the rubric, click the right plus button.
To add a new criterion to your rubric, click the blue + Add Criterion text at the bottom of your rubric. This will add a new criterion at the bottom of the list. You can then move this criterion level to the appropriate location by clicking and dragging the dotted icon on the leftmost side of the criterion. Drag and drop the criterion where you would like it to be located. Release the mouse button to place the criterion in it's new location.
You can also delete any levels or criterion in your rubric.
To delete a level in your rubric, click the trashcan icon underneath the level. Click the blue Delete button to confirm.
To delete a criterion in your rubric, click the ellipses icon (...) next to the criterion. Select Delete Row from the dropdown menu. Click the blue Delete button to confirm.
The rubric will automatically save every time you make a change on it. Once you have finished customizing your rubric, click the Close button at the bottom of the screen.
Publication Status
In VIULearn, Rubrics can be set to have the following Publication Statuses:
Published: Rubric is available to be attached to other activities in VIULearn.
Draft: Rubric cannot be attached with other activities in VIULearn. This setting is useful if you are still working on creating your rubric and you want to make sure that it is not used in an assessment until you have finished creating it.
Archived: Rubric will not appear in the Rubrics tool and cannot be attached to other activities in VIULearn. Rubrics that have been previously used in an assessment cannot be deleted from the course, so you may wish to archive a rubric you do not wish to see or use in your course anymore.
In the course homepage, select Faculty Tools in the course navigation bar. From the drop-down menu, select Course Admin.
Under the Assessment category, select Rubrics.
Click on the rubric you wish to edit.
Click the Status text in the upper right hand corner. Choose your preferred publication status.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Close button.
Attaching Rubrics to Activities in VIULearn:
Once you have finished creating your rubric in VIULearn, you will need to attach it to an Assignment Submission folder, Discussion Topic, or Grade Item in order to grade that assignment using that rubric.
It is important to make sure that you are happy with your Rubric before you attach it to an activity within VIULearn. This is because once students start submitting to the activity, it is not possible to edit the Rubric's name, descriptions, levels, and criteria.
Please Note: In order to attach a rubric to an activity within VIULearn, the publication setting on your Rubric must be set to Published. If you are not seeing your rubric when you go to attach it to an activity in VIULearn, review the Publication Settings on your Rubric to ensure that it has not been set to Draft or Archive.
Select Assessment and then Assignments in the course navigation bar.
Find the Assignment Submission folder you would like to add a rubric to and click the downward arrow beside it. Select Edit Assignment from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, click the New Assignment button to create a new Assignment Submission folder.
Click the Evaluation & Feedback tab.
Click the blue Add Rubric text. Select Add Existing from the drop-down menu.
Click the checkbox next to the rubric you wish to attach.
Click the blue Add Selected button.
Click the blue Save and Close button.
Select Communication and then Discussions in the course navigation bar.
Click the downward arrow beside the Discussion Topic you would like to add a rubric to. Select Edit Topic from the drop-down menu. Alternately, click the New button and select New Topic to create a new Discussion Topic.
Click the Evaluation & Feedback tab.
Click the blue Add Rubric text. Select Add Existing from the dropdown menu.
Click the checkbox next to the rubric you wish to attach.
Click the blue Add Selected button.
Click the blue Save and Close button.
Select Assessment and then Grades in the course navigation bar.
Click on the Grade Item you wish to add a rubric to.
Scroll down. Underneath the Rubrics heading, click the Add Rubric button.
Click the checkbox next to the rubric you wish to attach.
Click the blue Add Selected button.
Click the blue Save and Close button.