Create and Grade with Rubrics in Blackboard

Rubrics provide standardised grading criteria for assessments, often helping to provide transparency, consistency and clarity for students. They can be associated with assignments, journals and discussions in Blackboard. If it is linked to a submission point, students are always able to see the rubric and marking criteria it uses before submitting their work via the assignment submission point.

Whilst they offer many benefits for staff, including speeding up and making the marking process more consistent across a team of markers, they require some upfront investment in time from both academic and administrative staff.

All rubrics should be created with reference to school, faculty and institutional marking criteria. Refer to the University of Bristol marking criteria and/or to local guidelines for school and faculty-level marking criteria when creating your rubric.

Creating, editing, and copying rubrics

Rubrics can be created and edited via either an individual assessment or the Gradebook. They should be carefully checked for clarity and consistency before use and should adhere to guidance on marking criteria for your school, faculty, or the institution at large.

If you intend to use the rubric in just one assessment within a course, it is best to create it within that assessment.

If you intend to use the rubric in several assessments within the course, it is best to create and edit it via the Gradebook before linking it to any assessments.

Rubrics can only be edited before they have been used for marking. Once they have been used to mark work, you can only duplicate and edit the new version.
No changes to a rubric applied to a submission point should be made after the assessment is available to students.

Once created, all rubrics can be accessed and edited via the Gradebook and may be applied to any assessment within a course.

Creating a rubric in an assessment:

Rubrics added to a visible submission point will be shared with students. No changes should be made after rubrics have been shared with students.

Go to the assignment in your course and select the assignment title.
Select on the cog icon in the top-right hand corner of the screen.
Scroll down to the Additional Tools section and select Add marking rubric.
Select the Create button.
Amend the title from ‘New Rubric’.
Select the rubric type you wish to use from the drop-down menu. See our guide for the different types of rubric you can create, including additional considerations for each.
To edit the contents of a cell, hover your mouse over it and select the pencil icon.
To add extra rows, hover over the column/row boundary line in the title row and select the purple plus icon that will appear.
To delete a row/column, hover on the title and select the trash icon that will appear.
When this is completed, select Save in the bottom right-hand corner.

Creating a rubric in the Gradebook:

Go to the Gradebook and select the cog icon. This will open a side-bar.
Scroll down to the Course Rubrics section.
Select the Create button.
Amend the title from ‘New Rubric’.
Select the rubric type you wish to use from the drop-down menu. See our guide for the different types of rubric you can create, including additional considerations for each.
To edit the contents of a cell, hover your mouse over it and select the pencil icon.
To add extra rows, hover over the column/row boundary line in the title row and select the purple plus icon that will appear
To delete a row/column, hover on the title and select the bin icon that will appear
When this is completed, select Save in the bottom right-hand corner

Adding an existing rubric to an assignment

Rubrics added to a visible submission point will be shared with students. No changes should be made after rubrics have been shared with students.

Find the assignment in your course and enter it by selecting the title.
Select the cog button in the top-right hand corner of the screen.
Scroll down to the Additional Tools section and select Add marking rubric.
Look for the name of the rubric: If you are using a points-based or points-range rubric, you should toggle the option to apply the points possible.
Select Add.
Select Save at the bottom of the settings page.

Duplicating and deleting a rubric

To duplicate a rubric:

Go to the Gradebook tab and select the cog icon on the right-hand side.
Scroll down to the Course Rubrics section and select the “…” icon next to the relevant rubric.
Select Duplicate, change the name and press save.

To delete a rubric;

Go to the Gradebook tab and select the cog icon on the right-hand side.
Scroll down to the Course Rubrics section and select the “…” icon next to the relevant rubric.
Select Delete. You will be asked to confirm that you wish to permanently delete the rubric.

Grading with a rubric

This is general advice on marking with a rubric. Some variation may appear depending on the rubric type used. Please refer to our guide on different rubric types for more information.

Go into the Markable items tab of the Gradebook and select the assessment name.
On the submissions page, select the student whose work you wish to mark.
The rubric appears within the overall feedback tab on the right-hand side of the page. If you are unable to see it, select the overall feedback tab to open it as shown below.

The rubric can be found underneath the Overall Feedback box.
Select a performance level for each criterion to select it. In the example below, Criterion 1 has Satisfactory selected.
Select the Show Descriptions toggle underneath the maximum score if you wish to have descriptions of each criterion showing.
Add feedback for each criterion by selecting the ‘Add feedback’ option next to the criterion name, which appears as a plus sign.
All rubric scores and feedback will calculate and save automatically.
Add overall feedback by entering it in the box above the marking rubric and selecting Save changes.