[Rubrics] Editing Capabilities for Rubrics

[Chris_Hofer]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas LMS

---

I would like to see some additional options for Rubrics.  Specifically, it would be nice to be able to:

• Insert a new rubric row anywhere within an existing rubric.
• Drag and drop an existing rubric row to another location in the same rubric.

Use case: I was building a rubric with 40+ rows for an instructor.  After about the 40th row of the rubric, I realized I had forgotten to add a criterion around row 20.  So, I had to delete rows 21 and beyond...insert the row I missed, and then re-add the rows I had initially added.  I soon learned you have to be really careful when building rubrics with lots of rows.

[thompsli]

Yes, I've already got the Tampermonkey script installed for moving rows around, and will take a look at the spreadsheet-based option next time I need to build anything complicated from scratch (I tend to copy and modify existing rubrics to make my new ones, so the lack of ability to export my existing 10-to-17-criteria rubrics into the spreadsheet means that it's probably not worth it for most of my use cases in existing classes this year - more of a summer project).

I'm actually "misusing" rubrics the way I use them in my class half of the time, anyway. I do use them, as intended, for grading assignments with multiple criteria and breaking out say, calculation accuracy from justification. However, I also use them to give question-by-question scores on my paper-based exams (they get a single re-take of only the questions they missed, so I need the score breakdown by question to be easily accessible so I can modify the points after the re-take), and that's where I end up with the really unwieldy rubrics because it's actually not the right tool for the job. I just didn't see any other good way to make a single assignment with sub-scores in Canvas other than by using a rubric. I don't want 10-17 "assignments" per test cluttering up my gradebook, and I don't see any other way to impose that "graded question by question" structure for a paper-based assignment rather than an online quiz.

The issue with Tampermonkey scripts is that they only help me, the computer-savvy person in my building (I went to graduate school in Computer Science and Engineering before changing careers to become a secondary math teacher). Unless I decide to spend my time serving as tech support to my fellow teachers (and my plate is pretty full already), it's not really something I can recommend that other teachers in my building use. I read through the source of each script I install to look for obvious security issues (as well as only installing scripts from people who seem to have a good reputation here in the Canvas community as a first-step filter), and I really wouldn't want to be telling non-programmer teachers to install something that lets them run random scripts they don't really have the background to vet because I'm not sure they'd know enough to know what questions to ask. I could develop a whitelist for them and/or just do it for them wholesale, but my actual position in my school is "math department head" not "system administrator", and after ending up as the uncompensated system administrator for my school's online gradebook in a previous job (because I was the one who had the background to make it work, despite also being the math department head at that school rather than anyone with a formal job description in tech), I'm hesitant to end up "in charge" of extra things I won't be paid for again.

I can pretty much find or build any tools I need to kludge together a work-around for most things if they annoy me enough to motivate me to spend the time on it (particularly if they're available via the API so I don't need to do anything too ridiculous). However, I was also the only one in my school who could get the equivalently-confusing kludgy things to work back when we used Moodle, and the main point of us switching to Canvas was supposed to be that it was more user-friendly and easier for people without a CS background to use. Every time the answer is "well, Linnea can get Canvas to do that because she's some kind of computer wizard, but it doesn't work for anyone else", it isn't really a helpful selling point to the rest of the staff.  

[kona]

I totally agree that I wish this functionality was built into Canvas! And that's something  @James ‌ says as well about all his #canvancements‌. He would be happy if they became obsolete because Canvas added the functionality into their core product.

As a side note, James has it in the works, just not finished, the ability to export a rubric in Canvas to CSV. The person could then tweak and edit it and import it back into Canvas.

[christy1]

Please add being able to freely move Rubric Grading Criteria up and down

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello  @christy1 ‌...

Have you checked out this blog by  @James ‌: https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/designers/blog/2015/08/25/sorting-rubrics-made-easy 

[galit_stam]

YES!  THIS!  How frustrating to not be able to edit rows, columns, etc.  Please fix this!  THANK YOU!!   

[vrs07nl]

we still need to be able to create canvas rubrics from scratch with NO point allocation required in the set up 

we use word scales not numbers 

I raised this as a feature request two years ago and spoke to someone leading development in Canvas at length about what we needed. Without this facility many of the related canvas assessment options will not truly work for us (peer review, moderation, speedgrader etc) - so we either have to mark in Turnitin or upload pdfs of our rubrics 

[lisa_moore]

I just submitted an idea asking for better Turn It In integration so that I can use both the plagiarism checker and Canvas Outcomes to track data from standards-based grading. I saw your idea after I had already posted. I do appreciate the work-around suggestion. I will try that in the meantime... 

[lisa_moore]

I just asked about this today. It looks like this is not yet possible. I'm glad to know I am not the only one advocating for this. 

[whitman_11]

I want to echo what others have said above. I just gave failing grades for a whole batch of assignments, wondering why the hell the students ignored the rubric, and now I'm hearing from them that they can't see it. Now I've finally found this discussion, and I agree: This is ridiculous! It needs to be fixed right away. I'll pass on to my students the view-via-Grades workaround, but this is a big disincentive to use the rubrics that we are encouraged so much to use now.

[tobe_baeyens]

I think rubrics should be designed like a table (a little bit like speedgrader but without all the bells and whistles). A rubric should have cells in rows and collumns. It should be possible to rearrange rows by dragging them up and down. It should be possible to navigate to other cells in the rubric with the arrow keys. It should be possible to import rubric data, or (even better) paste rubric data from another spreadsheet. It should be possible to add rows and collumns when and where you want them. There should be two collumns for every rating. One with the description and one with the points.