What are rubrics?

Rubrics define a number of weighted criteria for marking, with mark ranges for each criterion defining levels of quality from excellent to poor. Staff mark the work by clicking on the level for each criteria that best describes the work being marked. The rubric produces a total mark for the work (that can be overridden in Turnitin GradeMark). Students can then read what it takes to achieve a high score for each criteria. Rubrics can provide students with valuable feedback that gives them a good sense of what they need to work on to improve their grade next time around.

Rubrics can be used either on their own or alongside in-text comments and general feedback. In Turnitin, individual in-text comments can be attributed to a specific criteria in the rubric, so when it comes time to choose a level for the criteria, the marker can refer to the relevant comments made within the text.

Rubrics can be used to explain assessment criteria to students prior to submitting and improves the consistency of feedback to students. Rubrics can also help to clarify and speed the marking process for staff.

How long does it take?

A new rubric takes less than 1 hour to set up. When one senior academic moved to using rubrics he found it much quicker to mark assignments, effectively halving the time it took to mark each essay. Another benefit this academic found when using rubrics was that it clarifies the marking process for teaching assistants and gives them confidence that they are marking uniformly.

What are the benefits to students?

Students received feedback within 1 week. They were provided with the rubric criteria in advance of submitting, so they knew what they were being graded on. Once they received their feedback they could see which areas they needed to improve, as they received a breakdown of marks for each assessment criteria.

How do I use Turnitin Rubrics?

1. Access your Moodle course and either open an existing assignment, or add a new Turnitin Assignment.
2. Open any student submission within the Turnitin Assignment submission inbox.
3. Make sure you are viewing the student’s submission in GradeMark view, by clicking GradeMark in the top, left of the page. This will show you the GradeMark panel to the right of the page.
4. Click on the last icon in the bottom, right-hand panel.
5. Click on the wrench icon in the top right of the GradeMark panel.
6. A new window will launch containing a blank rubric (or the last rubric you created).
7. If you need to load a new blank rubric click the list icon in the top, left corner of the window and select Create new rubric.
8. Give the rubric a title by clicking and typing in the top bar of the window.
9. Choose the type of rubric you want, there are currently 3 options, which can be selected at the bottom of the window. The options are:
   1. Standard rubric: enter scale values for each column and weight your criteria rows using percentages.
   2. Custom rubric: enter any value directly into each rubric cell.
   3. Qualitative rubric: a rubric that provides standard feedback but has no numeric scoring.
10. Once you have chosen the type of rubric you want you can start adding the criteria and scale points. If you want to see examples of rubrics see: http://rubistar.4teachers.org
11. As you add details, periodically click Save in the bottom, right hand corner of the window.
12. If you wish to attach the rubric to the assignment click the link icon in the top, right hand corner of the window. Once you have done this for one assignment, it will remain attached for all other assignments in the same submission box.
13. After you have finished, click Close in the bottom right hand corner of the window.
14. The rubric will now appear in the rubric section of the GradeMark panel to the right of the page (accessed by clicking the last icon at the bottom, right-hand side).