Weighted marking rubrics

[kris_d]

Can we have the option to assign weighting factors to the criteria of a marking rubric please?

For example, as a course coordinator I would like to create a rubric with seven criteria, all marked between 0-100%. For the total mark, criterion A should be weighted quite heavily (25%) but some other criteria should be weighted much less (e.g. 5%). The resulting total mark should again be expressed between 0-100%.

The approved rubrics in my School all have weighting factors and I must use them (plus - it is only logical that "knowledge" is weighted heavier than "layout" for example).

Many thanks, Kris.

[Stef_retired]

@kris_d 

Thanks for your suggestion. Fortunately this is possible to accomplish with existing functionality—in fact, when I was teaching it's exactly how I designed my rubrics. Each criterion will display on its own row, and the instructor can give a different point value to each one. In your example, the first criterion will contribute 25 points to the total; the remaining six can be weighted however you choose by using the points field at the right of each criterion row to assign the weightings.

Here's how one such rubric might look (notice that the first criterion carries a higher weighting, and the assignment is worth 20 points in total):

For this particular rubric, I also included aligned outcomes to assess mastery; those outcomes do not contribute points to the total.

Instructions are in the Edit Point Values section of How do I add a rubric in a course?

As this is already possible, we've archived the idea.

[kris_d]

Thanks, yes I have tried that. However I wanted each criterion to be a range from 0-100% (that's how all our current rubrics work), not 0-10 for the first, 0-5 for the next one, etc. Mathematically it boils down to the same thing of course.

[pbeuchat]

I second the request of Kris.

It is much cleaner and in-line with pedagogic best practices at my institution to give all rubric criteria the same range (i.e., 0-100% in Kris' example), and then this gets weighted to the final score.

On top of weighting each criteria of the rubric, it would be great if Canvas would then scale the total points from the rubric to the points allocated for its linked assignment. Currently the rubric total points and assignment points must agree when the option "Use this rubric for assignment grading" is selected.

Would be great if this idea got some traction and was implemented!!

Cheers. Paul.

[FreavD]

I support this request. We like to use 1-10 scale grading for each criteria, so it's easy for students to see and understand how the criteria scores relate to their overall score. Adding a percentage (0-100%) for weight would make this much easier to do. 

Currently we just scatter the total of 100 points over the criteria, but adjusting the ranges to fit the 1-10 scale is a lot of unnecessary manual labour. 

This is also how we weight our assignments in a course, so why not for a rubric?  

Regards, Frea

[DanielMellifont]

I also support this request.

as much as we hope that marking is reliable, we know it is easily influenced by psychological factors, including having different numbers on a scale 

I want to be able to retain the same numbers on the scale and have the weighting apart/behind that as per Kris' request please.

[CraigS4]

For this to be a closed, archived case is a disservice to Canvas users. I completely agree with the other commenters here, and the original request. A weighting feature within the rubric would actually make that feature of Canvas useful. Otherwise, I don't see much practical use for it at all, which is a BIG disappointment and ultimately means a lot more "handwork" in grading for me.

My scoring is 1 through 5, with 1 being "Does Not Meet Criteria" to 5 being "Exceeds Criteria." This is all spelled out to the students up front so that the score value tells the students exactly where they stand with respect to their performance with a particular aspect of the assignment. This 1-5 scoring is the same for all assignments. As others have pointed out, not all aspects of each assignment have the same weighting; for example a report might be, content = 40%, writing quality = 40%, organization = 10%, format and presentation = 10%. Each aspect is scored on 1-5, but the actual assignment grade needs to be correctly weighted.

I understand you can do this as suggested by varying the point levels (i.e., content = 40 points, writing quality = 40 points, organization = 10 points, format and presentation = 10 points), which may be useful in some contexts. However, for the most part it just makes grading and the communication of feedback more confusing. In the example above, I have to figure out where 1-5 are on a 40 point and 10 point scale (based on the weightings), and assign grade scores accordingly. MORE IMPORTANTLY, THIS HAS TO BE RE-FIGURED FOR EVERY ASSIGNMENT WITH DIFFERENT CATEGORIES AND WEIGHTINGS, AND THERE IS NO CLEAR CUT MESSAGING FOR THE STUDENT OF THEIR PERFORMANCE IN A PARTICULAR ASPECT OF THE ASSIGNMENT. Students have to decipher what percentage of the available points they received on each aspect of the assignment in order to get a sense of their performance. Working within the current functionality of Canvas rubrics makes the time, thought, and math involved in grading way more complicated than necessary.

When you have a lot of students like I do, having a clean and efficient means of grading is a must. Adding the ability to use a single grading scale for everything with different weightings for different criteria in a rubric would greatly streamline grading. Otherwise, the grades are more meaningful for the students if I do it all manually on the 1-5 scale. Unfortunately, I can't keep doing that because we are moving to Canvas assignments and grades for our assessment of curricular outcomes, so the grades on complete assignments AND aspects of the assignments need to be available in Canvas for the automatic population of the assessment system. Frustrating.

[JeffreyTarr]

I support this request. Please, Canvas, make this an option.

[DanielMellifont]

Hear Hear Craig S4:

"For this to be a closed, archived case is a disservice to Canvas users. I completely agree with the other commenters here, and the original request."

I was hoping to start a new "Idea Conversation" asking that this weighted rubric idea be escalated for action but apparently we "new members" don't have the right to 🤔