Tips for Rubrics

Exemplars, Anchors, and Next Steps

Exemplars, anchors, and next steps are optional fields that provide information to scorers and teachers about the expected student response.

Define a single exemplar for an entire rubric. An exemplar demonstrates or explains a student response that would yield a perfect score for the rubric.

Define an Anchor for each level of achievement in the rubric. Anchors provide an example response to earn this achievement level's score.

Additionally, you can define the Next steps for each level of achievement in the rubric. These steps outline the actions a teacher or student can take to help the student reach a higher level of achievement.

Holistic and Analytic Rubrics

You can create holistic (single criteria) or analytic (multi-criteria) rubrics. How you create your rubrics depends on how you plan to use them.

No matter which type you use, the following applies:

• One rubric can be used with multiple interactions.
• Multiple rubrics of either type can be assigned to a single interaction.
• Every criterion associated with an item must be scored for its results to display in reports.

Holistic Rubrics

Holistic rubrics use only one criterion. Create holistic rubrics for items that require scoring on a particular measure, like those used on interim assessments.

You can choose individual rubrics to assign to an item for scoring. This allows flexibility in item creation, but each rubric must be created, located, and added separately.

Analytic Rubrics

Analytic rubrics use multiple criteria, so the rubric editor contains multiple rows. Create analytic rubrics for items that require comprehensive scoring, like those used on major benchmark tests. In addition, this rubric style accommodates a criteria checklist for meets (one point) or does not meet (zero points) scoring style.

You can choose one rubric containing a full set of criteria to assign to an item for scoring. This allows for streamlined rubric and item creation, but each criterion of the rubric group must be valid for the item and for any test since all must be scored for results to display in reports.

All criteria in an analytic rubric should use the same levels of achievement or point values. The scorer is presented with all score levels for each criterion in the rubric, even if they were not meant to apply to a specific criterion.

Rubric Permissions

Creating rubrics requires menu security, and the default Read permission is required to use rubrics.

• Users creating rubrics require the necessary permission to navigate to Items and New Rubrics.
• Users performing any of the following tasks require Read permission to a rubric:
  • Previewing or creating human-scored items.
  • Previewing or building tests with human-scored items.
  • Scoring tests.
  • Displaying reports with human-scored items.

By default, all active faculty within the district have Read permission to rubrics when created. No additional steps are needed to assign Read permissions.

Refer to Rubric Security for more information.