Blackboard Rubrics

Rubrics help ensure consistent grading practices and help students focus on your expectations

Creating Rubrics

1. Click "Course Tools" in the Course Management menu.

2. From the alphabetized list of tools, find and click "Rubrics."

3. Click "Create Rubric."

Note: Rubrics can only be imported if they were previously exported from Blackboard as a ZIP file. You can not import rubrics created in a word processing program.

4. Name the rubric.*

5. Write an optional description of the rubric

*Tip: Name the rubric based on the assignment which it will be associated with.

6. Select the type of rubric you'd like to create from the drop down menu.

7. Add as many rows or columns as you need in your rubric. The default rubric is 3X3.

Note: If you choose percentage based rubrics, you can also choose to show or hide criteria weights.

8. Use these buttons to reverse the orders of the criteria rows or levels of achievement columns.

9. Click on the grey arrow next to the titles of the rows/columns you wish to edit.

10. Click "Edit."

11. Type in the new title of the column or row you are editing.

12. Click "Save."

13. Fill out the point or percentage value for each rubric row and column.*

14. Type a description for each criterion and the associated level of achievement. Each cell has a 1,000-character limit.

*Note: This step may look different depending on the rubric type you selected in step 6. The image in this walk-through features a point-based rubric type.

15. Once all rubric values and descriptions are filled out, click "Submit" in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Associating Rubrics

Now that you've created your rubric, it is time to link it to the course item it is associated with. You can associate rubrics with assignments, discussion boards, blogs and journals, wikis, and essay/short answer quiz questions. This walk through will cover assignments, discussion boards, and quiz questions.

Assignments

In the assignment options page (accessed either by creating a new assignment or editing an existing assignment), you can add a rubric.

Learn how to create an assignment

1. Click "Add Rubric."

2. Click "Select Rubric." A pop-up window will open.

3. Check the box next to the name of the rubric you wish to associate with the assignment.

4. Click "Submit."

Now that the rubric is associated with the assignment you have a few options:

5. View the rubric.

6. Remove the rubric from the assignment.

7. Edit the rubric.

8. You can select whether to use the rubric for grading or secondary evaluation. Default is set to use rubrics for grading.

9. You can also select how students will view the rubric. The default is set to hide the rubric from students entirely. You can select to show them the rubric at any point with or without scores, OR to only show the rubric after grading.

Don't forget to hit submit once you have associated your rubric with the assignment, or your changes won't be saved.

Discussion Boards

In the discussion forum options page (accessed either by creating a new forum or editing an existing forum), you can add a rubric.

Learn how to create discussion boards

1. To associate a rubric the option "Grade Discussion Forum" must be selected.

2. Click "Add Rubric."

3. Click "Select Rubric."

To complete adding a rubric to a discussion forum, complete steps 3-9 in the section on associating rubrics with an Assignment. Don't forget to click submit when you're done!

Test Questions

You can add a rubric to a new essay or short answer test question, or edit an existing essay or short answer question to add a rubric.

Learn more about creating tests

1. Create a new test, or navigate to the "Edit Test" page of an existing test.

2. Either create a new question or edit an existing question you wish to add a rubric to.

3. Scroll down past the "Answer" text box, and click "Add Rubric."

Follow steps 3-9 in the section above on associating rubrics with Assignments. Don't forget to click submit when you're done!

Once your rubric is associated with the desired course item, and students have submitted their work, you can use the rubrics to grade the attempts through the grade center.

Learn more about Blackboard rubrics

Created By

Julia Brown

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Credits:

Created with an image by Jason Leung - "untitled image"