Grading with Rubrics

  1. Once a Rubric is created it becomes an available Grading Method option within the Assignments, Chat, Discussions, and Journal tools. Once you have chosen to grade using a rubric you will then need to choose the correct rubric from the drop down menu by title. The rubric is automatically visible to the students but you can uncheck the “Is Rubric Visible?” box to make it invisible.
  2. You must use the Detailed Grader to grade assignments using a rubric. Quick Grade is used to enter a total grade for an assignment and therefore is not available when using a rubric because each criterion requires its own point value.
  3. You can access the Detailed Grader from within the Gradebook by clicking the gray button to the right of the assignment title and choosing Detailed Grader.
    • Additionally, this is the only way to grade an assignment that is not attached to a tool but is set to be graded using Rubric
  4. You can access the Detailed Grader from within a tool by entering the tool (Assignment, Discussion, Chat, or Journal), choosing the appropriate assignment, and clicking the Grade Submissions button.
  5. The Detailed Grader will display assignment submissions one user at a time:


    Rubric Detailed Grader

  6. On the top right of the screen you will see the name the user whose submission is currently visible. Use the left and right arrows to scroll through users in the course. Click the downward arrow to see a drop down list of users in the course.

    Users that have submitted an entry for the assignment will be highlighted in dark gray, users who have not submitted will be highlighted in light gray, and users whose submissions have already been graded will be highlighted in green.

  7. Below the name of the student you will see the name of the rubric being used. Below that, the criterion are listed along with the points for each rating and the percentage of the total grade each one represents.
  8. The “View detailed” button will open up the rating descriptions for all criterion. Click the blue plus sign icon to view the descriptions of each criterion one at a time.
  9. To grade the submission, click on a point value for each criterion. Once clicked the points’ box will turn green.
  10. The rubric points will total automatically and display a total of the rubric points awarded versus points available.
  11. Rubrics always award a final grade based on a total of 100 percentage points. Therefore the grade awarded for a criterion must be calculated then multiplied by the percentage of the total grade it is worth.
  12. The total grade can be calculated by adding the totals for all criterion together. This is displayed in larger font at the bottom of the screen. You cannot manually edit or enter this grade.
    • For example, if the student earns 7/10 point (which equals 0.7) for the Introduction criterion and the criterion is worth 20% of the overall grade, than the criterion's worth is calculated as 20% X 0.7 = 14 percentage points toward the final grade.
  13. Below the total grade, the date and time of the students’ submission will be displayed.
  14. There will also be three icons at the very bottom of the screen within a gray toolbar:
    • If the student has uploaded a document for you to review you can view it by clicking the paper icon. Click the download icon next to the file title to download a copy of the file to your computer.  Click on the uploaded file’s title to view it within the browser. You can make comments, draw, highlight, add text, and strikeout text within the browser. You and the student will then be able to view and/or download this annotated version by clicking the appropriate blue button. Please see the Help Pages for individual tools to learn more about using this feature.
    • You can leave a comment for the user about their submission by clicking the thought bubble icon. Once you have added your comment click the green “Save grade comment” button. The comment will be visible to the student once the grades have been released.
    • Click the pencil icon to add a note for yourself about the submission. The student will not be able to view this private note. Click the green “Save my private note” to save your note to the entry.
  15. To edit Gradebook settings from the Detailed Grader click the small settings icon.
  16. Next to the settings icon is the Statistic icon:
    • The overall average score is shown in the yellow circle.
    • The highest percentage grade is shown in the green circle.
    • The lowest percentage grade is shown in the red circle.
    • The grade median and standard deviation, total number of students and number of assignments not graded, and the score distribution can also be found on this page.
    • Click the green “Close reports & return to grading” button to return to the Detailed Grader.
  17. When you have finished grading the assignment and you are ready to release the grades to students you can click the green “Release Grades” button at the top of the screen. Grades can also be released from the Gradebook.
  18. Click the “Back to assignment” button to return to the assignment or the “Back to Gradebook” button to return to the Gradebook, depending on where you originally accessed the Detailed Grader.