Creating Rubrics and Attaching to Gradable Activities

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The following article details how to create rubrics and attach them to gradable activities.

Please note that the course layout, steps, and screenshots shown below may differ slightly for your campus.

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Brightspace allows you to create grading rubrics that can be attached to grade items, assignments, discussion topics, and written response quiz questions for evaluation.

Create a rubric

1. Navigate to the Course Admin area of your course and click Rubrics.
2. Click the blue New Rubric button. 
    
3. The Edit Rubric page will appear allowing you to create a new rubric. The Rubric Status will default to Published. Click the Status drop-down if you would like to change this to Draft or Archived.
          a) Draft status allows you to configure and edit the rubric until it is ready for publication and/or association with gradable activities.
          b) Archived status disables the rubric from use in any new assessments, but any previous assessments that used the rubric will be retained. 
    
4. Click the Type drop-down to select what type of rubric you want to create. There are two types of rubrics that can be created in Brightspace: Holistic and Analytic. 
   a) A holistic rubric uses a single criterion to evaluate overall performance based on pre-defined achievement levels.
   
   b) An analytic rubric uses multiple criteria to evaluate overall performance based on pre-defined achievement levels.                       
    
5. Select an option from the Scoring drop-down menu. 
   a) No score: Performance levels are indicated by text instead of point values and no numeric feedback is displayed.
   b) Points: Only available for analytic rubrics. Performance levels are indicated by points and all levels have the same point value for each criterion.
   c) Custom Points: Only available for analytic rubrics. Gives the option to customize the points for each criterion allowing for some criterion to weigh more heavily than others
   d) Percentage: Only available for holistic rubrics. Performance levels are indicated by percentages. 
    
6.  Enter your achievement level titles in the first row (1) and add corresponding points (2). If additional levels are needed, click the ‘plus sign’ on either side of the rubric (3).
   Note: If you want to switch the order of levels from descending order (highest level to lowest level from left to right) to ascending (lowest level to highest level from left to right) or vice-versa.
   
    
7. Enter the criteria you will be scoring students on into the criteria fields. If additional rows for criteria are needed, click ‘Add Criterion.’ 
    
8. Fill in the description boxes for each criteria level. You can also add initial feedback which will display to learners when reviewing their graded rubric. 
    
9. Scroll to the bottom of the Edit Rubric page to confirm overall points for each level and enter text for each level to provide overall feedback. 
    
10.  When you are done editing, click the gray Close button at the bottom of the screen 

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Add a rubric to an assignment

1.  Navigate to the Assignments area of your course. 
2. Click the chevron next to the assignment you would like to add your rubric to and select Edit Assignment from the drop-down menu.
3. From the Edit Assignment screen, click the Evaluation and Feedback menu to expand it. 
    
4. Click the Add Rubric button and select 'Add existing' from the drop-down menu. 
    
5. Check the box to the left of the rubric you would like to add and click the blue Add Selected button at the bottom of the pop-up window. 
    
6. Click the blue Save and Close button at the bottom of the Edit Assignment screen.

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Add a rubric to a discussion topic

1. Navigate to the Discussions area of your course.
2. Click the chevron next to the discussion topic you would like to add your rubric to and select Edit Topic from the drop-down menu.
3. Click the Evaluation and Feedback menu to expand it. 
    
4. Click the Add Rubric button and select 'Add existing' from the drop-down menu. 
    
5. Check the box to the left of the rubric you would like to add and click the blue Add Selected button at the bottom of the pop-up window. 
6. Click the blue Save and Close button at the bottom of the Edit Topic screen.

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Add a rubric to a written response quiz question

1. Navigate to the Quizzes area of your course.
2. Click the chevron next to the quiz you would like to add your rubric to and select Edit from the drop-down menu.
3. In the Questions area of the Edit Quiz screen, click on the written response question you would like to add your rubric to. 
    
4. Click the Add Rubric button and select 'Add existing' from the drop-down menu. 
    
5. Check the box to the left of the rubric you would like to add and click the blue Add Selected button at the bottom of the pop-up window. 
    
6. Click the blue Save button at the bottom of the Written Response Question window. 
    
7. Click the blue Save and Close button at the bottom of the Edit Quiz screen.

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Add a rubric to a grade item

1. Navigate to the Grades area of your course and click the tab for Manage Grades.
2. Click the chevron next to the grade item you would like to add a rubric to and select Edit from the drop-down menu.
3. Scroll down to the Grading section and click the gray Add Rubric button. 
    
4. Check the box to the left of the rubric you would like to add and click the blue Add Selected button at the bottom of the pop-up window. 
    
5. Click the blue Save and Close button at the bottom of the Edit Item screen. 
   
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If you need further assistance or have additional questions please contact:
SUNY Online Support Services Help Desk
1-844-673-6786 | sunyonlinehelp@suny.edu