Enhanced Rubrics: SpeedGrader Feedback

[ATaylorTech]

We recently turned on Enhanced Rubrics for our institution, and while the rubric creation workflow has been very well received as a much-improved experience, we have received some feedback on the SpeedGrader workflow for Enhanced Rubrics. Some of the changes have made the grading process a bit more cumbersome, generally resulting in more scrolling needed and less available space to see the student's submitted artifact.

1. Location of the Submit Assessment Button: The 'Submit Assessment' button, which used to be on the left side of the grading pane, has been moved to the right. This means that a grader may have to scroll over to see the button, and may entirely miss it if they don't have the grading pane fully expanded. Recommendation: Please consider returning the 'Submit Assessment' button to the left, or at least fix the button so that it does not appear off of the visible area and require scrolling or expanding to see. This is the behavior that the 'Submit' button exhibits for submitting general comment feedback.
2. Expanded size of the criterion ratings: Comparing two identical rubrics side-by-side in Enhanced Rubrics and standard rubrics, the column size for the ratings is wider in Enhanced Rubrics, which means that the grader must expand the pane farther out to see the entire rubric, which means that the student submission is either smaller and harder to read, or requires scrolling to fully review. See examples attached to this post. Recommendation: Reduce the width of the ratings to increase the available size for viewing the student submission.
   
3. Bolded Text in Criteria: The criteria text is bolded, which, for longer criteria, means that each criteria are longer and more scrolling is needed to get down to the next level. Recommendation: Remove automatic bolding from the criteria.
4. Instructor Score Location: The instructor score has been moved to the top of the rubric... but only when grading. After submitting the grade, the awarded score is visible both above in the grading textbox, as well as below the rubric... after the rubric feedback has been submitted. This means that to review the total score awarded before finalizing the feedback, the grader must scroll back to the top to view the score before then scrolling back down to press the 'Submit Assessment' button. Recommendation: Move the 'Instructor Score' field to the bottom of the rubric while grading so graders can review the score without scrolling to the top.
5. Horizontal and Vertical Scoring Buttons: Currently, if the grader wants to save space by using horizontal or vertical view, the number to the left of each rating displays in reverse numerical order instead of displaying the points assigned to this rating. This means the grader must click each box before seeing how many points each level will award. Recommendation: Display the awarded points of each rating in these views without needing to click on them.

Thank you very much!

[aimee_garten1]

I had a conference today with faculty expressing the exact same issues and concerns. My co-LMS Admin and I were perplexed, as we did not enable enhanced rubrics or any changes with SpeedGrader. After the Instructure updates meeting, we turned on the Discussion Checkpoints feature but immediately faculty were upset about the SpeedGrader experience, so we turned it off again within 36 hours. I don't think that action has anything to do with this, but I can't imagine why our faculty are having this "improved" but problematic experience with SpeedGrader and rubrics this week.

[kroeninm]

I agree with all of your suggestions @ATaylorTech, though it's a small change, my biggest concern is with the Submit Assessment button.  Since the rubrics are wider, even if you are fairly good at resizing the rubric/grading part of the screen, that Submit Assessment button often falls off the screen at the right and requires scrolling.  The Save button at the left was more intuitive for users to find and use.