building a rubric is 'fine', but our lecturers get lost when actually using the enhanced rubrics

[quinten_verdonc]

So,

our lecturers are facing multiple problems when using the enhanced rubrics:

1/ It's become very unclear how the link between a rubric and an assignment works. In the old version you had your 'baseline' rubric on account level, and when you add the rubric to an assignent, it would be possible to set some custom parameters for that specific assignment. (such as graded or not). With enhanced rubrics our teams fail to understand how the connection works

2/ when you remove a rubric from an assignment, Canvas prompts that the rubric will be completely removed. It indeed disappears from your list at account level. However when you're adding a rubric to another assignment, the 'disappeared rubric' appears again in the options? How does that work?

3/ many of our lecturers use the same rubric multiple times in a semester: The first time ungraded and only for feedback. A second time the rubic is still used for feedback purposes, but the grading behind the rubric is used to grade the assignment. Only in the latest phase the rubric and the grades are shared with students from the start. In the previous version it cost us no more than to switch on/off one or two toggles in the rubric settings at assignment level, nowadays there are seemingly 3 levels where to choose if a rubric shows grades or not?

• Some further clarification: 
  a/ The teacher wants to work with a rubric that is points-based and whose score can also be included in the grade list, but students cannot see the weightings and scores. Only the completed rubric. --> only feedback, no point score
  b/ A rubric with a score, first share the feedback and after a while also share the scoring.
  c/ Over the course of several assignments:
       The same rubric (with underlying scoring) is reused each time. The parameters of the rubric vary per assignment: use completely without points (only feedback to students), use with score but only show feedback, both feedback and scores shared with students

4/ importing rubrics: this is just plain underdeveloped: the import function doesn't take into account local CSV formatting (, or ;), doesn't take into account the account-level setting of reformatting CSV dividers,... It's also seemingly impossible to import complex rubrics where some criteria have 5 levels and other criteria have only 2 levels. That's crazy, because its especially for the complex rubrics that we need the import function.

[reenie_arnold]

My imported rubrics are a mess; the text is overlapping to the point where I cannot even recreate by cutting and pasting. I have wasted more time recreating rubrics that have SO MANY limitations. I am done using them except for the larger, "expensive" projects. Now our school admin is requiring adding outcomes, and I cannot figure it out, since every time I create a rubric, it jumps to the list-- I have to literally write down the title to find a newly created a rubric. I am tired of "mathing" every time I grade an assignment, or having to edit a rubric 2-3 students in, when realizing the scoring isn't working because I checked a box during its creation, that forces me to choose between seeing the grading scale or not during the grading process. 

[quinten_verdonc]

@reenie_arnold  Unfortunately, our staff are reporting the exact same issues as you do. It's even gotten so bad that we have some of our most enthusiastic people giving up on using rubrics in total. I cannot raise enough of an alarm with instructure, but so far I've been hitting a wall. I really don't understand what the developers had in mind when designing enhanced rubrucs, but they certainly didn't take the full process in consideraton. Only improving the builder but worsening all the rest, is just globally worsening the tool. That is unacceptable.

[reenie_arnold]

I spent an hour creating a new, fair rubric yesterday (since the "adding old rubrics" feature is not working), trying to figure out the best way to be able to give 55/60 AND be able to have comments (have to choose between which is new).  We should be able to preview a rubric in its entirety in EDITING mode this toggling back and forth is unnecessary and adding criterion separately is unnecessary/creating issues. 

I just discovered this today: the rubric points per criteria category are backward: low to high: 18.1 --> 20 instead of 20 --> 18.1 (to appear as if we're subtracting for elements they are missing, not "granting" points-- see attached). This feature is not editable, either.

I hope they fix these issues, or at least offer us the choice between the old and "enhanced" (my institution will not offer this; I have asked twice). Thanks for commiserating. 🙂

[YasiAfsharnive]

Hi @quinten_verdonc, 

Thanks so much for taking the time to share this detailed feedback. It’s super helpful as we keep improving Enhanced Rubrics.

1. Rubric–Assignment Connection
All the old settings (graded/ungraded, visibility, etc.) are still there, they just live at the assignment level now. Once you attach a rubric, you can edit the assignment to adjust those options. 

2. Removing Rubrics
This sounds like a bug. When removing a rubric, you should be able to choose between deleting it entirely or just unlinking it from the assignment. If it’s disappearing from your library unexpectedly, our team will dig into that.

3. Reusing Rubrics & Visibility Settings
We completely get these use cases, using the same rubric for feedback-only, grading, or both. Right now, those visibility and scoring options can be changed at the assignment level each time you reuse a rubric. That said, we know it’s not as simple as it could be, and your examples (a, b, c) are great context for us as we work on improving it.

4. Importing Rubrics 
@reenie_arnold I know you're concerned about this one as well. You’re both right, the import process needs work. Handling different CSV formats and complex rubric structures is something we have on our roadmap and your feedback is very helpful as we work on the next iteration.

Really appreciate you sharing these details. Feedback like this helps us focus on what matters most to our users.

[quinten_verdonc]

Hi Yasi,

By reading your comments, it would seem as if the workflow is very similar to the 'old' workflow, but our experience couldn't be more different. It might well be that the workflow is designed as you seem to describe, but in the way Canvas prompts messages and warnings to us, it becomes all very very unclear, and like I said before, our staff and myself (admin) get lost...

[quinten_verdonc]

Enhancing a little further on this: I was experimenting myself with the rubric settings at assignment level, but I seem to mix up rubric-level and assignment-level settings. All I'm trying is to make grade scores more or less visible on the same rubric in different assignments. But now Canvas has made a copy of my rubric, and how am I supposed to know which version has what settings?

It's not clear enough which settings are at rubric level and which settings are at assignment level. At the very least we need a seriously good manual to simply understand how rubrics work, but also the naming of the rubrics (both in dutch as in english for non native speakers) is too confusing.

[YasiAfsharnive]

@quinten_verdonc Thanks for your feedback. Settings that are specific to an assignment (the three checkboxes at the bottom of the rubric) need to be configured at the assignment level. General settings (eg. scored/unscored) can be configured at the Rubric Index level. I will absolutely work with the documentation team to tackle this change. Totally understand how it can be confusing to see the settings moved around!