You can use a MyLO Rubric to provide feedback to students, even if you don’t intend to generate a mark with the Rubric. This type of Rubric is known as an Analytic Text Only. NOTE: You will still need to choose an overall score (level) when marking.

Follow the instructions below to create a Rubric for feedback only. If you would like to use a Rubric for feedback and marking (e.g. to generate an overall score or Grade), check out this post instead.

Step 1

Select Assessment > Rubrics from the MyLO toolbar.

Step 2

Select the New Rubric button.

Step 3

Configure the Properties for your Rubric as shown in the image below.

• Give your Rubric a Name, and keep the Rubric Status as Under Development. 
• You can give your Rubric a short Description if you wish to (this is optional).
• The Rubric Type must be set as Analytic. 
• Record the Initial # of criteria. This will generally be five: one each for HD, DN, CR, PP and NN. As this Rubric is for feedback only, you may wish to use novel levels, such as Pass/Fail (two levels).
• Record the Initial # of criteria. This reflects how many rows will be seen in the Rubric (other than the Levels header and a final row for the Overall grade). You can add or remove criteria rows later if you need to.

Once you have set the Properties, scroll down and select the Save button.

Step 4

Select the Levels and Criteria tab.

Step 5

By default, the level names are Level 5, Level 4 etc. You will need to change the Level names to names you would like to use. At this point, you can also add your Criterion Descriptions. Select the arrowhead next to Criteria (left cell, top row), then select Edit Criteria Group.  

Replace the existing Level names with your own names, then add in the Criterion. For efficiency, you can tab between the fields. You can also paste text (e.g. from a Word document) into each cell using keyboard shortcuts or browser menu options. Scroll down and select the Save button when you have finished (you may need to scroll down to see it).

Step 6

You will now need to edit the Level names in the Overall Score row (bottom row of the Rubric) to match those of the top row. To do this, select the arrowhead next to Overall Score (left cell, bottom row), then select Edit Levels.

Edit the Overall Level Names. There is no need to add a Description or Feedback. When you have finished, scroll down and select the Save button at the bottom of the page.

Step 7

You can now enter the Level descriptions for each criterion. You can either edit all the criterion descriptions for the same Level (e.g. those in the same column) by selecting the arrowhead next to a Level and choosing Edit Level…

… or edit all the descriptions associated with one criterion (e.g. those in the same row), by selecting the arrowhead next to that criteria, then selecting Edit Criterion.

Whichever method you choose, type OR copy and paste in your descriptions into the Description field. You can add Feedback if you wish. A student will only see this feedback if you select this criterion level when marking their work.

Step 8

Continue entering the descriptions until your Rubric is complete. Remember to save your work by selecting the Save button (bottom left of the screen). Once your Rubric is finished, you will need to Finalise it and attach it to the relevant Assignment Submission Folder or Grade Item.

MyLO Rubrics can be used to mark submissions made to Assignment Submission Folders. They are also useful as a means of providing feedback to students about their performance on a task.

If you plan to mark with Rubrics, or your Unit Coordinator has asked you to mark with Rubrics, you will find the following guides helpful.

• RECOMMENDED: Change your Dialog Setting to increase ease of marking with a Rubric.
• Access the Rubric: from an Assignment Submission Folder or; from a Grade Item.
• Marking with a Custom Points Rubric (generates a score).
• Marking with a Text Only Rubric (no associated points).

Here are three methods that can be used to grade student Discussion contributions online:

1. Marking with a Grade Item via the Discussion Tool, in which a score and general feedback are provided; or
2. Marking with a Rubric via the Discussion Tool, in which an electronic Rubric is used for feedback and/or grade calculation (when a Custom Points Rubric is used).
3. Marking via the Gradebook (using just the grade or a rubric attached to the grade) in which you can enter marks into the Gradebook rather than from the Discussion tool – useful if you have multiple discussion topics but only need 1 grade item overall.

As a general rule, we recommend using the simplest method for low-stakes Discussion assessments worth 10 marks or less. Online Rubrics are best used for higher value assessment tasks.

This table details the benefits and limitations of each grading method. In all 3 cases Students view their grade &/or rubric via the Grades tool.

Note when creating Discussions – the ‘Forum’ is only an organisational device, it cannot contain discussion posts on its own. The ‘Forum’ is used to group sets of discussion topics together. A discussion ‘Topic’ is a distinct location for one or more discussion thread(s). Students can’t post directly into a ‘Forum’, you must set up topic(s) first.

Mark using Discussion Tool

1. First, set up your Discussion topic. This guide will show you how: How to set up a Discussion topic
2. Now associate a Grade Item with the Discussion topic. This guide will show you how: Associate a Grade Item with a Discussion topic
3. When it is time to grade students’ Discussion contributions, this guide will show you how: How to grade a Discussion topic via the Discussion tool

Marking via Rubric in Discussion Tool

NOTE: If your College or Faculty features a flexible learning or blended learning team, they may be able to create the electronic Rubric for you, but you will need to have the rubric details ready including any weighting you want attached to the criteria.

1. Decide which type of Rubric you will use. This post compares the Custom Points and Text Only Rubric types. Instructions for setting up a Rubric can be found here: Custom Points Rubric creation; Text Only Rubric creation.
2. Now set up your Discussion topic (or Topics if you are catering for several Groups of students). This guide will show you how: How to set up a Discussion topic.
3. Associate both the Grade Item & the Rubric to your Discussion Topic.
4. When it is time to grade your students’ contributions, these guides will show you how to mark using a Rubric: marking with a Custom Point Rubric; marking with a Text Only Rubric.

Mark into the Gradebook (with or without rubric)

1.  Create a standalone Grade Item/Grade Items and associate your Rubric with the standalone Grade Item/Grade Items. These instructions explain how to set up a standalone Grade Item: How to create a Grade Item.
2.  Mark via the Grades tool. This guide will show you how: How to grade a Discussion topic via the Grades tool.

You can grade student assignments using MyLO Rubrics. Creating an Analytic > Custom Points type Rubric will allow you to generate a score for each student, based on the weighting of each criteria, and the levels (e.g. HD, DN, etc.) selected for each criteria. The score does not need to be made visible to the student. You can also record feedback against each criteria if you wish to.

Creating Custom Points Rubrics is somewhat complicated. In some faculties, your local blended learning/distance learning support team may be able to create a Custom Points Rubric on your behalf. You will need to provide them with:

• A word document containing the criteria and level descriptions;
• Weighting or Points values for each criteria, totalling either 100% or up to the points value of the assignment.
• Details of the Assignment Submission Folder or Grade Item that you want the Rubric attached to.

You may be asked to check the Rubric before it is Finalised and attached to an Assignment Submission Folder/Grade Item, as Rubrics cannot be altered once marking commences.

Create a Custom Points Rubric from scratch

First go to the unit & choose Assessment – Rubrics from the toolbar.

If you don’t already have a rubric to edit just click “New Rubric”.

It may take a minute for the page to load, give it a name & check the first set of settings across the top.

Analytic rubric setting means it will calculate a score from multiple criteria. Holistic is one criteria only.

Points vs Custom Points – if your criteria are weighted differently to each other (have different points values to each other) choose ‘Custom Points’. If all of your criteria are worth the same each, you can leave it as “points”.  In this help guide we will create ‘custom points’ rubric as this is the most complex.

The table will be pre-populated with default values. You can edit any of these values just by clicking into the text & typing.  You can also copy/paste text to the cells from Word. Note there is a limit on the number of characters you can use in the Criteria Name column. The rubric tool will SAVE as you go.

1. You can add another column either to the left or right of your columns by clicking either of the [+] buttons at the top.

2. You can remove a criteria by clicking the bin icon to the right of the criteria row.

3. You can add another criteria to the end of the list by clicking ‘Add Criterion’ at the end of the list.

NOTE: With either Points or Custom Points – one column (the default is the right-most) MUST have the maximum obtainable mark for each criteria in it, this is how MyLO Rubric knows how much the rubric is out of. You can , if you want to avoid having the HD column be set at the maximum, use a ‘maximum achievable’ column. Other columns can be set as something lower than the maximum if you prefer. For standard UTAS grades (ie HD, DN etc) the values you use for the DN, CR, PP columns will need to fall into the range defined by the criteria. (HD = 80% – 100%, DN = 70% – 79% etc).

To re-order the criteria just click & drag the criteria using the small icon to the left as circled below.

Once you are done setting up your criteria you can scroll down to check the “overall score” area that calculates an overall level. You can change the default values. You can add or delete extraneous levels entirely by clicking the Plus sign or the Garbage bins. You can delete all but 1 (so you could just have a ‘complete’ level based on any score out above 0 if you want).

Scroll down a wee bit further and click on “Options” to show important options.

The first set of 3 options defines when the rubric is visible to students. Note that students do like to work “to the rubric” so keep in mind they may ask about it if you decide to turn it off here you might consider giving them a PDF rubric.

Score Visibility: this refers to the scores in individual criteria levels not the overall score. If you check this it just means they’ll see what level they got for each criteria but not the specific number associated with each. They will still see their overall grade. This option is useful to keep as ‘hide’ as it allows for discretion in marking & moderation.

The two options under the description are to “allow associations” which is a rather confusing way of saying “this rubric can be attached to things” – so leave at least the first one checked ON or you can’t then use the rubric anywhere in MyLO because if you un-check it the rubric can’t be added to assignments for … some reason.

You’re not quite done yet!

Scroll all the way back to the top-right to find the option to set the rubric as “Finalised” (why is it up here? why not both at the top & at the bottom?) To use the rubric anywhere it has to be set to “finalised”.

Once Finalised you can now attach this rubric to assignments, grades, or discussions. As you use it for marking it will also auto-save as you go.

The MyLO Rubrics statistics feature shows you how grades/levels are distributed across the class, and the average grade/level for each criterion.

To view the Rubric statistics:

Step 1

Go to the MyLO site for your unit. Select Assessments > Rubrics.

Step 2

Locate the Rubric you wish to review. Click on the small arrowhead next to the Rubric name, then select View Statistics from the menu.

Step 3

You will see the average score (if a Custom Points Rubric has been used) and average level for the class. To see more, click on the small graph icon that appears in the Actions column.

You will now see three tabs to choose from. The first is Overall. This shows you the percentage of students who have reached each level (e.g. HD, DN, CR…)

The second tab is Criteria Statistics. This is a very useful view which tells you the percentage of students who have reached each level (e.g. HD, DN, CR…) for each of the rubric criteria.

The third tab is Individual Statistics. This will show you the overall level and score (points) attained by each student. You can re-organise the table by student name or assessor name.