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Prepare for assessment using outcomes

This step-by-step guide explains how you link outcomes 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.

Steps in the guide

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

  1. Link outcome rubric to the assignment.
  2. Choose settings for the rubric.
  3. Finishing the rubric.
    • Possible warning message about the assignment’s score.

1. Link outcome rubric to the assignment

To use outcomes for assessment they need to be linked to an assignment via a rubric, which is a table of outcomes. There are several ways to create these rubrics, but we recommend creating the rubric directly in an assignment.  

To create a rubric that contains outcomes, do the following:

  1. Go to the assignment that you want to link the rubric to.
    • 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. Press the “+ Rubric” button. This creates a new rubric.
    An assignment with a highlighted "+ Rubric" button after the assignment information.
  3. Change the standard name of your rubric to something more descriptive.
    A newly created rubric with a standard name and standard criteria already created.
  4. Delete the standard criterium that comes with all new rubrics.
    • Note! Due to a bug, you may need to save the rubric and reload the page before you can delete things from a rubric.
  5. Add an outcome by pressing “Find outcome” and choose the outcome you want to use from the list.
    • "Find outcomes" highlighted with a crossed out "Criterion" button
      Note! Be careful with searching for outcomes via ”Find outcome” so you don’t create local criterion in the rubric. You can only see outcomes in the Learning Mastery Gradebook, not local criterion.
  6. Continue adding your outcomes via “Find outcome” until you have added all that you need.
    • Tip! The outcomes will be added from top to bottom in the order you choose them and they can not be moved afterwards.

The next step is to choose settings for the rubric.

All ways to create rubrics

For those interested we list all ways to link a rubric to an assignment in Canvas:

2. Choose settings for the rubric

The settings for the rubric control if and how points are handled in the rubric, and if the result should be reported in the Learning Mastery Gradebook. If you want to use a rubric without points, this is where you choose to remove the points from the rubric.

Choose the settings that suit your use of the rubric. You can find explanations of the settings under Select rubric settings in the guide about adding rubrics (community.canvaslms.com) .

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. Finishing the rubric

When you’re happy with the rubric and its settings, press “Create rubric” or “Update rubric” to save it. Both teachers and students will see the saved 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 "Change assignment points to match rubric?"

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.

Be careful if you delete a rubric

There is no way to restore deleted rubrics in Canvas, but rubrics are saved in different ways depending on how they were created. The following list goes through the different cases.

  • Rubrics created directly in an assignment:
    • deleted completely from the course if they are deleted from the assignments.
  • Rubrics created via the course menu:
    • can be deleted from assignments without being deleted from the course.
    • deleted completely from the course if deleted via “Rubrics” in the course menu.
  • Rubrics copied from other courses:
    • can be deleted from the course without being deleted from the original course.
    • remains in the course even if deleted from the original course, but behaves like rubrics created directly in an assignment.

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 .