[ARCHIVED] Rubrics used for assignment grade

[cliff_cunningha]

Good morning, Canvas Community.

So... when creating an assignment, an instructor can create (or assign) a rubric to that assignment.

The instructor can then use that rubric to assess the assignment submissions.

Cool. So far, so good.

But, a few faculty have learned the hard way, that Canvas, by default, does not capture that rubric-enabled assessment, and push those rubric-gathered points over to the "assessment grade" (which feeds back into the gradebook). There is a setting that controls that functionality. UNLESS the instructor knew about the setting, and placed a checkmark in the concerned checkbox back at the beginning, when building and assigning the rubric, then any points they assign in the rubric... will just sit in the rubric... going nowhere, not really doing much of anything.

The checkbox in question is "Use this rubric for assignment grading".

My question is: In what use-case... in what scenario... would an instructor go to the trouble of building and assigning a rubric... filling out points in the rubric while grading the submissions... and then NOT want and expect Canvas to use those points as the Assessment Grade for the respective submissions?

That escapes me and my team, and the various faculty with whom we have spoken.

When an instructor misses this little bit of instruction... and they go ahead and invest an hour grading assignments... they will close out of SpeedGrader, and then realize that none of their grades transferred over... and, now have to manually enter those grades into the "Assessment Grade" textbox.

Before submitting this as an "Idea"... to change the default setting to "On"... making it an "opt out" parameter... I would like to know if there is a rationale that I am missing.

Thx.

Cliff

[ajohnson]

Cliff, I completely agree with you! I have only found one use case, across dozens of courses: putting the rubric on a draft assignment. Since that's the odd one out (and in all the Canvas courses I've worked on, I've seen this done once, and it could easily be accomplished by having the assignment worth 0 points, too), I agree that this checkbox should by default be on, or change the checkbox to "don't use this for grading"!

AnnMarie

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @cliff_cunningha and  @annmarie_johnso 

Actually, I have been of the same mind in the past, but my time in the community has cured me of that. There are actually many faculty who choose to not assign points with their rubrics, but would much rather use them as formative tools, and enter free-form comments instead of scores to assist student learning. There is a link to some of the rubric discussions that have occurred in the Community here https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/groups/blog/2016/06/14/bog-06132016-ideas-for-rubric... .

Me personally, I still use them for grading, and you can edit the rubric, and check that nasty little box after the fact; I know, because I too often forget to check it or the setting breaks when I copy the course into a new shell. Maybe it would be nice if that was set as a default, and those who use them differently could make the change themselves.

I hope this helps,

KLM

[michaels]

Hello, I use rubrics in my class but don't push the grade because each item in the rubric represents a skill to be mastered and is assigned a grade of 1, 3, or 4. A 1 means that mastery has not been demonstrated and I give feedback in the rubric comments section. 4 is full mastery, and 3 means that some mastery has been demonstrated and a comment is given for what was missing. If the student got a 1 on anything then their grade is a 1 and they have to make the corrections indicated. If no 1s were received, then their grade is the average of their scores for each rubric item. I would push the grade through the rubric if I could get it to average it for me, but since I can't I manually enter the score. 

I know that it is not traditional grading and therefore not typical use of rubrics, but thought I would share since you asked.

Jenny

[kmeeusen]

Thank you  @michaels 

As I said above, there are other uses of rubrics, and the Canvas Rubric tool supports those uses. I appreciate your chiming in as a good example.

KLM

[Stef_retired]

I used to enable the "Use this rubric for assignment grading" checkbox religiously, but I also design my rubrics to accommodate point ranges for each cell, which means I have to fudge the grade after clicking the appropriate boxes. Not having the grade populate is ultimately easier for this workflow.

[llane2]

Frankly I'd just settle for just having the pop up window open large enough that I can see the checkbox at a glance! And the edit pencil is confusing - I don't want to edit the rubric, just click the checkbox for grading. 

[heather_stockfo]

We use ungraded Rubrics ALL THE TIME with our faculty in the nursing department with skills. There is a very long laundry list of skills that student nurses have to get "checked off on". With that said, they are tied to outcomes for accreditation, thus that knowing about that little check box is huge for us so it doesn't add points, but does document completion as met or not met, needs improvement...

[lauer]

I also agree with the general sentiment here. If there are legitimate reasons for not making "Use this rubric for assignment grading" the default, then there ought to be a warning asking "are you sure?" and explaining the consequences.

[timakad_culler]

I agree with the idea to use a rubric in canvas.  Rubrics is useful for the students to  follow and track their process to gain the most possible points on the assignment.  I use canvas for students to submit their assignments.  Now, that I  learned canvas functionality I have a better understand how to upload a rubric in canvas. 

[chemlectures]

Would also be a good idea to be able to toggle rubric visibility.  Many instructors use rubrics as answer keys and have to move the rubric off the assignment to keep the answer key confidential.  Being able to build one on the assessment and leave it on the assessment while students complete it would be more efficient (and just requires a "visible" flag).