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Prepare for assessment using rubrics

This step-by-step guide explains how you link outcomes and criteria to assignments in Canvas through a rubric, with settings adapted to your course and area of use. The guide also covers common issues that may arise and how to handle them. The guide is based on the workflow in the updated feature “Enhanced Rubrics.”

Steps in the guide

To prepare an assignment for assessment using outcomes and criteria you need to go through the following steps:

  1. Create and link a rubric to the assignment.
  2. Choose settings for the rubric.
  3. Link outcomes and criteria to the rubric.
  4. Finishing the rubric.
    • Possible warning message about the assignment’s score.

1. Create and link a rubric to the assignment

To use outcomes and criteria for assessment they need to be linked to an assignment via a rubric. You can either create a rubric directly in the course menu via “Rubrics” or by adding a rubric directly to an assignment. We recommend creating the rubric directly in an assignment.

  • Go to the assignment that you want to link the rubric to and press the “+ Create rubric” button below the assignment description. 
    Two buttons, where "+ Create Rubric" is highlighted. Next to it is "Find Rubric".
  • If you want to use an existing rubric, press “Find rubric” instead. You can select a rubric from any course where you have a teaching role.

Tip! A quiz created in New Quizzes is a type of assignment in Canvas and thus it can also have outcomes linked to it.

2. Choose settings for the rubric

The rubrics settings determine how it is ​​used by teachers and presented to students. For example, you can set whether points are used, how points are managed, and whether the results are reported in the Learning Mastery Gradebook. You can also set the rubrics total points to be used to grade the assignment.

Overview of the settings for a newly created rubric.

Choose the settings that suit your use of the rubric. You can find explanations of the settings in the video (1:18) on the page How do I add a rubric to an assignment using Enhanced Rubrics? (community.instructure) . 

Tip! If you use points in the rubric and in the assignment, make sure that the total score in the rubric is the same as the score of the assignment. Otherwise, the students may be confused about which score applies.

3. Link outcomes and criteria to the rubric

Criteria and learning objectives are added under “Criteria Builder”.

  1. Rubric with learning outcomes: Add a learning objective by pressing "Create From Outcome". In the "Find learning objectives" view that opens, select from the available learning objectives in the list. When you have found a suitable learning objective, press the "Import" button.
  2. Rubric with criteria: Add assignment-specific criteria by pressing “Draft New Criterion”. The “Create New Criterion” view that now appears has input boxes for:
    1. Criterion name, criterion description, and possible scores.
    2. Lines with information about display, score, assessment name, and ranking description.

The outcomes and criteria will be added from top to bottom in the order you choose them, but you can move them by drag-and-drop.

4. Finishing the rubric

You can choose to “Preview Rubric” and to save the rubric as a draft if you want to continue working on the rubric at a later time before showing it to students. In that case, the rubric will be marked with the label “Draft”.

When you’re happy with the rubric and its settings, press “Create rubric”. Both teachers and students will see the created rubric at the end of the assignment.

Possible error message about the assignment’s score

If you have chosen to use the rubric to grade the assignment, the total score in the rubric should be the same as the assignment’s score. Otherwise, a warning message will show up when you save your rubric and ask if you want to change the assignment’s score to match the rubric’s score.

The warning message "Confirm to continue".

You have three options:

  • “Change”. Automatically changes the score of the assignment to the total score of the rubric and saves the rubric.
  • “Leave different”. Saves the rubric without changing the score.
  • Closing the warning box with the cross. Takes you back to the rubrics editing mode.

Changing or deleting a rubric

Rubrics cannot be changed if they are used in more than one place. If you want to make changes to a rubric, you need to duplicate it first, then the changes will be saved in a new rubric.

If you want to delete a rubric, keep in mind that rubrics need to be deleted from the same place they were created. That is, a rubric created in an assignment only needs to be removed from all assignments to be deleted, while a rubric created via "Rubrics" in the course menu also needs to be deleted via "Rubrics".

If you incorrectly deleted a rubric, you might be able to restore it. Read more on the page Restore and recover course content in Canvas .

Check the grading scheme

Sometimes you may need to edit the grading scheme if it does not correspond with the levels of the outcome. If, for example, the highest assessment for an assignment is a C, then that also needs to be reflected in the grading scheme.  

Read more about Letter grades and grading schemes .

Related material

For more information on how to manage rubrics in a course, see the guide and video How do I manage rubrics in a course using Enhanced Rubrics? (community.instructure) .

If you want to add a rubric to a course instead of an assignment, see the guide and video How do I add a rubric in a course using Enhanced Rubrics (community.instructure) .