The assessments students complete in your courses (e.g., projects, papers, presentations, performances, exams) provide a way for students to demonstrate how well they have achieved the student learning outcomes. Designing rubrics that clearly convey your assessment criteria to students will help them understand how you will be grading their work and provide them with meaningful feedback they can use to self-assess their strengths and areas for improvement. This resource offers guidance for understanding, creating, and using rubrics effectively.

Rubrics are guidelines, criteria, or expectations used to assess student work and provide feedback. Most people think of rubrics as a tool that lays out the criteria to evaluate (grade) written student work after it is submitted or presented. However, rubrics can also be used to provide feedback on other demonstrations of learning like class participation or contributions to a specific discussion.

Rubrics support student learning by providing a structured and consistent way to assess student work, promoting transparency and fairness in assessment.

Rubrics typically contain several components, which may include:

• Criteria: These are the specific aspects or dimensions of the task or performance that you’re assessing (e.g., content, organization, clarity, argumentation, use of sources). Criteria should be clear, specific, and relevant to the learning outcomes or purpose of the assignment.
• Performance Levels & Scoring Scale: Each criterion is typically broken into different levels of performance, ranging from exceeds expectations to does not meet expectations. The scoring scale corresponds with the levels of performance and can be numerical (e.g., 1-4) or descriptive (e.g., excellent, good, fair, poor).
• Descriptors: Each criterion is accompanied by a description or a set of descriptors that outline the different levels of performance.
• Weighting: In some cases, criteria may be weighted differently to reflect their relative importance.
• Feedback Space: Rubrics may include space for providing written feedback or comments on each criterion or overall performance. This feedback helps students understand their personal strengths and areas for improvement.
• Overall Score: Rubrics typically provide a mechanism for calculating an overall score based on the scores assigned to each criterion. The score can be used to summarize the students’ performance on task. Students can also use the rubric to score themselves and self-assess their performance before submitting an assignment.

The simplest type of rubric is a checklist rubric, which is a list of criteria and descriptors with only two performance levels possible (e.g., yes/no, present/not present, meets/does not meet). These types of rubrics can include written feedback for each criterion. One benefit is that they are quicker to use; however, they only assess for proficiency or completion in a binary way.

Checklist rubrics are great for smaller assignments or formative assessments, such as an online discussion board post, an in-class reflection, or drafts of an upcoming larger project.

The single-point rubric is similar to the checklist rubric, in that there is one single column of criteria; however, it makes space for written feedback for each criterion. Like the checklist, single-point rubrics are quicker to create and easy for students to read since the only descriptors are the target expectations. Another benefit is that they allow for higher-quality, more individualized feedback because teachers specify areas of growth and strengths for that particular student.

Single-point rubrics are very useful to provide formative feedback and support students’ growth. Thus, you could use the rubric without assigning any points, or you could assign points for completion but use the rubric to provide feedback that the student can apply to future work.

Another simple type of rubric is a holistic rubric, which consists of a single scoring scale where all criteria are considered together. For each level of performance, there is a detailed description that allows for an overall assessment. Thus, the students’ performance is matched to a single description on the scale. However, the feedback is more general than specific, and it may be difficult to determine which level of performance is most fitting.

Like checklists, holistic rubrics are useful for smaller assignments and formative assessments or behaviors like in-class participation. They can even be used for learning activities that are not formally graded by providing a summary of expectations.

The analytic rubric is what people typically imagine when thinking of a rubric. It resembles a grid or a table with the criteria listed in the leftmost column and the levels of performance listed across the top row. When scoring with an analytic rubric, each criterion is scored individually.

Analytic rubrics provide the most detailed and useful feedback on areas of strengths and weaknesses. They tend to provide more consistent grading. The one drawback is that they may take longer to create.

1. Determine the purpose of the assessment. Identify what is most important for students to demonstrate with the assignment based on the course learning outcomes and how the assignment aligns with those outcomes.
2. Decide what type of rubric is most relevant. Based on the descriptions of checklist, holistic, and analytic above, determine which is best fit for the assessment.
3. Identify criteria and performance levels. Determine the specific aspects that you are assessing and, if you are creating a holistic or analytic rubric, a scale of performance for those criteria.
4. Write clear descriptions for each level of performance. If you are creating an analytic rubric, be sure to use parallel language between the different levels of performance for each criterion so that the distinctions between them are clear. For instance, if full marks for “background information” in a research report is, “The brief overview of the concept provides accurate and thorough connections to course concepts and cites at least 3 peer-reviewed sources,” then the next level down might be, “The brief overview of the concept provides some connections to course concepts and cites at least 1 peer-reviewed source,” and the lowest level might be, “The overview of the concept does not include connections to course concepts or any peer-reviewed sources.”
5. Determine relative weight of each criterion. Consider if certain criteria are more important than others and should be worth a larger percentage of the grade. For instance, for a research project, evidence and analysis might be more important than organization and presentation of the information.
6. Consider the format and layout of the rubric. We recommend inputting the rubric into Canvas so that it is accessible for students to review in conjunction with the assignment and so that students will have access to the rubric-based feedback.
7. Test and revise the rubric. Before deploying to assess student work, test your rubric on a hypothetical or actual example of student work to ensure it works in the way you intended.

Rubrics are very beneficial for learning if implemented in an equitable way. Here are some additional considerations to help ensure fairness and consistency in assessing diversity in student performance.

• Use rubrics consistently and fairly. If working with teaching assistants or using the same rubric across instructors, practice applying the rubric together.
• Keep rubrics clear, concise, and aligned with learning outcomes.
• Review and revise rubrics periodically to ensure relevance and accuracy.
• Communicate rubric expectations to students. Go through the rubric when introducing the assignment. You could even look at an example together and have students practice using the rubric to assess that example. Ask students if they have any clarifying questions about the rubric or potential changes.
• Provide written comments as feedback in addition to ranking student work based on rubric criteria.
• Encourage self-assessment and reflection using rubrics. You could also ask students to peer review each other’s work using the rubric.

We highly recommend you draw upon existing examples when creating a rubric.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has developed Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) rubrics for 16 broad, cross-cutting learning outcomes, including ethical reasoning, global learning, intercultural knowledge and competence, and teamwork.

The EMRN rubric is a four-level rubric framework that uses a simple flowchart to categorize student work/learning into one of four categories: Excellent, Meets expectations, Revision needed, and Not assessable. You might use EMRN as your levels of performance for a holistic or analytical rubric.

Generative AI can also help you to create a rubric. For instance, when prompted with, “Create a rubric for an undergraduate research project,” and, “Create a rubric for an undergraduate research presentation,” ChatGPT provided a list of criteria with detailed descriptions for the highest level of performance. You could present this rubric as a checklist rubric or use this information as a start to build a full analytical rubric.