Rubric

Introduction

Rubrics or grading schemas are standardized assessment tools that serve to evaluate students’ performance in a systematic and consistent manner. In terms of digital assessments, rubrics provide a clear and structured framework for assessing student performance on various components such as content, presentation, creativity, technical skills, and other specific criteria.

Creation

Creating rubrics begins with defining the learning objectives that the digital assessment should cover. These objectives are then broken down into specific criteria to be assessed. Each criterion is then rated on a scale, often ranging from “excellent” to “poor”. It’s crucial to provide clear and specific descriptions for each criterion and each performance point on the scale to ensure a fair and consistent evaluation.

Execution

In conducting evaluations using rubrics, students’ performances are rated against each criterion on the scale. The overall evaluation results from the sum of points for each criterion. Rubrics may also contain a feedback component where teachers can provide specific comments or suggestions for each assessed component.

Preliminary Considerations

Before implementing rubrics, some important considerations should be made. This includes reviewing the relevance and appropriateness of the criteria in relation to the learning objectives, considering whether the scale is meaningful and fair, and ensuring that the rubric is easily understandable and interpretable. It may be helpful to initially test rubrics with a small group of students or peers and collect feedback before deploying them on a larger scale.

Implementation in Moodle

Moodle offers an integrated feature for creating and using rubrics. To create a rubric in Moodle, select the activity module in the course where you want to use the rubric (e.g., assignment) and open the grading settings. Choose “Rubric” from the “Grading method” menu and click “Create new rubric”. You can then input the criteria and the grading scale and save the rubric. When grading work, you can simply click on the appropriat box in the rubric to assign the grade. 

Example of a rubric in moodle for rating videos